Just say NO to noni

Last year, I saved an article about Peruvian cuisine from some travel magazine, thinking it would serve as a good reference during our culinary explorations. And it has been. In particular, the article kicked off with a beautiful photo of native Peruvian fruits. Somehow it became my “to-do” list of fruits to try.


Some have been really easy to find. I adore lúcuma. 

Lúcumas are in the middle. When cut open, they are bright orange and have a large seed, like an avocado.

Plantains and limes are not new for us but we use them frequently in our cooking. Pepinos are very small, mild-tasting melons.

Pepinos, with an errant apple

Granadilla reminds me of a brain but when I stop thinking about that, I kind of like it.

Granadilla

It tastes pretty good when paired with chirimoya and mandarin oranges in jugos. Chirimoya is interesting but so far the only time I’ve actually enjoyed it is in the aforementioned juice combination. By itself it calls to mind a sweaty locker room; ugh.

Chirimoya

Maracuyá we have every single day in our morning jugo, made by Sam and Simon. Aguaymanto is lovely in its presentation, every berry wrapped in a delicate little bag.

Two aguaymanto, ready to eat; unwrapped aguaymanto on the tray.

Until recently, the only time I had tried camu camu was in an incredibly delicious chocolate. That didn’t count, not exactly, so when I saw that our regular fruit vendor had it, we bought some and Sam made mango-camu camu jugo. More, please!

Making juice with camu camu

As of last week, there were still five fruits left on the list. I was at a mercado with Yannina’s mom/Dieuwe’s grandmother, Mamita. As she was bargaining with a fruit vendor over the quality of the lúcuma, my eye wandered over the rest of the fruits. There was a bizarre looking fruit near the bottom. “What is that?” I asked. “Noni, three soles per kilo.” Oooh, a strange new fruit that I figured was on my list. I bought one, added some apples at Simon’s request, stuffed them in my backpack, and continued ambling with Mamita.


She bought Simon a chicha morada, ensuring that he would love her for the rest of the afternoon, and offered to teach me how to make it (yes!!!). While we sat and drank our chichas, I noticed a weird smell. I figured the lúcumas Mamita had purchased were really ripe but didn’t think too much of it.


When I got home, I opened up my backpack and a powerful stench leaped out at me and smacked me in the nose. “Yuck!” I yelled, making a disgusted face, and put the noni in the refrigerator to contain the odor. Simon was intrigued yet worried by my reaction and went around imitating me for a while, coming back every so often to see if I’d repeat my reaction. As it still reeked, I was happy to oblige.


Sam, in another room and unaware of the drama in the kitchen, yelled out, “Hey, does Simon need a diaper change?” “No,” I made another face for Simon's benefit. “It's this stinky fruit!”


I thought about throwing the noni out, but it was on my list of foods to try, after all. It was in the picture! Someone, somewhere, must have eaten it at some point for it to be popular enough to be featured in this article! Maybe it actually tasted good, once you got past the peel.


I Googled how to prepare it. I should have known; practically every site I visited said something similar to this: “It has a foul odor and bad taste… but the health benefits are unparalleled! Peel it, blend it with some citrus juice to mask the taste, and drink immediately.”


Well, I’d come this far. I got several limes ready, pinched my nose shut, and peeled the stinkiest-of-all-stinky fruit. 

Noni

I threw it in the blender, squeezed the limes in, and mixed it. I tasted the smallest amount possible, gagged, then flushed it. “How do people force this down?” I asked Sam. “I think I’m going to be sick!”


“It smells like someone already was,” Sam observed. “Can you flush that again? And while you’re at it, can you open the outside door for some air?”


Sam later added that eating noni goes against one of the laws of nature, which is that things that are supposed to be eaten are generally attractive and smell good. Those that are to be avoided are stinky and ugly. I’m not sure what possessed people to start eating this horrifically disgusting fruit, but thank goodness they apparently get some health benefits from it. I’ll stay noni-free from now on, thank you very much. No wonder they put the noni in the back of the picture. The photographer must have wanted it to be as far as possible from him or herself. You can see the picture here.


I think I’ll take a breather from my list and concentrate on mangos to recover. Now if only I can get the smell off of my fingers. I feel like Lady Macbeth, what with all this scrubbing: “Out, damned spot!”