Apples and figs. Not necessarily my favorites, but definitely seem to have the broadest amount of flavor potentials.
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Looking at my fruit tier list, I would have to pick a couple of my s-tier fruits.
number one- Apples.
- There are so many varieties, with vastly different flavors and textures
- Most versatile fruit. dried, cooked, sauced, salad, fresh eaten, vinegar, juiced, baked. I eat apples almost every day anyways.
- filling and satisfying to eat. when I think āi want a piece of fruitā it is an apple I reach for.
- I can grow them. I would hate to grow something I couldnāt eat, so If I was limited to 2 fruits, I would need to be able to grow them.
- Apple Cider is the best fruit juice and fruit alcohol. Balanced, not viscous, easily fermented. Best served warm with mulling spices and bourbon or apple jack and some whipped cream on top. freshly grated nutmeg.
My Number two is harder. I love cherries, so probably cherries even though they donāt do as well in Jersey. I donāt have as many reasons other than I remember getting pecks of them from an orchard near the Susquehanna in P.A and eating so many that things turned redā¦
But, if tomatoes count, I would pick them over cherries. Life without sauce or salsa, that would be sad. No pizza, no reason to live.
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I canāt say Iāve ever had a good mango. Iām surprised at all the votes they have gotten. Maybe I should try them again.
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Itās very, very hard to find a good one outside of the regions where they are grown. Generally, they are picked way too early so they will ship ok, and then often they are heat-treated for pests when they are imported, which destroys much of the āperfumeā and āspiceā flavors/aromas.
If it doesnāt smell amazing when you hold it to your nose, it will never really ripen like it should.
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True, but the same could be said for stone fruits. Iāve never had a mango that was even close to my best nectarines or sweet cherries. The best mango Iāve had were purchased from FL and shipped in. They didnāt come close to my stone fruit. I also bought peaches from CO. Supposedly the best in the country. They were terrible. So, source is critical.
Iām trying to grow my own mangos. Maybe those will measure up. But I doubt it. Thing is mango breeding is in itās infancy compared to stone fruit breeding. Thatās even more so in the case for other tropical fruits. Many are just seedlings at this point.
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All sounds 100% true minus the sweet cherries. Makes the rest lose credibility to me haha. Just kidding of course as taste is subjective, just hard to imagine having cherries ranked so highly. Guess I need to seek out some quality cherries. Of course ripe stone fruit is superb I just assumed most people in temperate climes had access to some good local stone fruits as good mangoes are tougher to come by naturally. Also like you said mango breeding is decades or even centuries behind many other fruits.
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My best sweet cherries are incredible. Same for nectarines. Thing is theyāre very hard to grow to their best quality. It took me from 1971 when I first started growing fruit until about 2010 when I really got to the best Iāve had. That included four years spent in CA after I retired. I move from TX to CA just to grow fruit. Even there in the center of the stone fruit industry it was hard to find really good stone fruit. I was disappointed time after time. After moving back to TX it took a greenhouse for water control to reach consistently great quality stone fruit.
The sweet cherries I grew 30 years ago in Amarillo were very disappointing. And I put a lot of effort into them.
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Iāll play.
Raspberries and Avocados.
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So, you ārecentlyā had your 50th anniversary? Awesome.
I suppose it doesnāt count as my start of growing fruit if my Uncle took me outside when I was 4 to plant a cherry tree from a hard cherry candy.
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Thank you. Thatās from my first orchard that I planted my self. I can rember fruit from a weeping mulberry in the 1940s or early 50s. And Whitney crabapples from the 50s and 60s.
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I assume they recommend against sweet cherry, but not sour cherries? For about 40 years, CO was one of the key producers of montmorency across the US, until a hard freeze in 1954.
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There is nothing like a perfect ripe mango. I grew up in India, when mango season comes, you can smell them from a distance. Hafooz or alphonso mango is considered the king of mangoes, but there are so many varities to choose from. Its also the area that it comes from that imparts perfect flavor. My friend mentioned Carrie mango grown in florida to be outstandingā¦she now has a few crates shipped to her place every season. Mangoes in grocery store cannot compare, tasteless! My other favorite is elaichi banana, dont like the grocery store bananasā¦the elaichi banana are small, but so flavorfulā¦very aromatic. I have only had a few perfect peaches, and i dont even know the variety but when its good its the best and when its bad ā¦its really bad like eating cardboard. Purple jamun fruit was my favorite as a childā¦cant find it here. Figs used to be a favorite but after eating too much, dont have a preference for it anymore. I am going to pick blueberries for my 2nd fruitā¦thought they were boring before but last year I tasted homegrown berries for the first time
ā¦who knew they can be aromatic, with rich variety of flavorsā¦aromatic and tangy blueberries are my favoritesā¦
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You might have to go to the various mango festivals in Florida.
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What you said about mangoes can be said about properly grown peaches, nectarines and some other stone fruits. Problem is the ones from your local farmers market or grocery store are way overwatered, over fertilized, and picked way before they are ripe for transport and to avoid loosing profits on bruised fruit. Same as your grocery store mangoes.
I have eaten some of the best stone fruits and mangoes, and they are comparable, but we like our best peaches and nectarines slightly better, a more intense flavor profile. That being said there is nothing more refreshing than a perfectly ripe juicy Edward mango, on a hot humid day fly fishing for tarpon in the Florida Keys.
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As a childā¦ when dinosaurs roamed the earthā¦ cherries were my absolute favorite food. Now the grocery store cherries have no flavor. Homegrown cherries, local fruit stand cherries, farmersā market cherries - those are good! Same for peaches. Since storebought cherries are still occasionally good, when my husband does the grocery shopping he knows to bring me loads of cherries during the brief cherry season, grapes for the rest of the summer, navel oranges all winter, and berries at every opportunity. Itās hard to grow fruit where I live but Iām working on it. So far, the little Evans cherry has been the only one to really produce! Apples and pears are still awaiting a year when erratic spring frosts donāt kill all the blossoms (and sometimes the tree); but Iāve planted a late blooming, hardy Benton sweet cherry and Chinese apricot anyway, and ordered an Intrepid peach - ever the optimist.
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@clarkinks thanks for sharing the vid, great contentā¦a friend was one of those people who couldnāt get past the smell for a few years until he took a trip to the south of the Philippines where they were abundant and thus almost blasphemous not to tryā¦Once he had a taste of what smelled a bit like cat poop, he was instantly hookedā¦ 
Later on that first day, he unfortunately discovered he was also one of those who get high blood pressure from it.
For me, aside from the heavenly flavors, durian was a perfect quick-acting early morning breakfast just a few minutes before my morning runs. I definitely noticed I got extra drenched in sweat after durian -powered runs vs other bfast.
Indeed the terroir is indeed a factor with durian.
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Agree. Though mangoes have been bred for generations in other countries. I grew up in India and there are some incredible varieties of heritage mangoes there that havenāt made it over here.
Totally agree with you though, itās all about varieties, growing regions, climate/etc and if you can find something that is right for your yard/farm, itās going to be incredible vs. almost anything else thatās store bought. For all the reasons that a lot of smart folks here have already enumerated on other threads. I had a related out of body experience 2 days ago (posted on the tropical fruit thread I started) where I had Starfruit that fell (on the way home) from a tree I bought at a nursery. It was so good and brought me back to an orchard I used to visit as a child. Iāve never had Starfruit like that in the intervening decades.
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@Plisa we have an active discussion going on around tropical fruit growing (esp in California) - would love any insights you have:
10000% agree with your comment. The heady aroma in the air in a ripe mango orchard or even while harvesting from a huge tree is incredible.
Elaichi Banana! You brought me back! I was just thinking the other day āis this something I can find here and growā. I used to LOVE those too. As an aside, for non-Hindi speakers, āelaichiā means cardamom. So there is a very tasty variety of miniature banana in India that tastes like a banana with cardamom sprinkled on it. Itās amazing.
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Amazing! Youāve been on the fruit growing journey for a while!
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