Kousa season has started! This is a great time for us suburban foragers, because this is a very popular ornamental tree. And since nobody knows you can eat the fruit, there’s plenty to pick, usually right by the side-walk.
Now, like anything else, the fruit quality can be pretty variable, but in this case, the fruit itself is considered ornamental, so at least a little breeding has gone towards fruit size. A really good, ripe one tastes like buttered peach. Unripe, they’re a bit sandy. They don’t last long, and quickly start to taste fermented.
Fruit is maybe the size of a ping-pong ball, with 1-3 pits inside, and usually red. Split it open, suck out the inside, and toss away the skin, which is a bit gritty if you suck too close to it.
I don’t see this one being used for much beyond eating out of hand. They don’t keep long enough to transport, and are probably too much labor to get separate the pulp from the skin and pits. Great snacking, though, and the tree is beautiful year-round, with nice leaves, flowers, pretty fruit, and even good-looking bark.
Attached are some I foraged off what is apparently an early fruiting cultivar with yellower fruit. Most kousas are not close to ripe yet.
I have some on my property, and I agree about the variability from tree to tree. Haven’t found one I’d describe as like a buttered peach but they are palatable enough to my tastes to eat a couple… a season.
They do seem good enough to beg someone to attempt to breed some improved varieties. Pest free and a pretty tree.
I noticed one of these fruiting a couple of days ago, and walked by it today. Inspired by this post I gathered several off the ground and ate them. Previously I knew they were edible, but didn’t realize they might actually be worth eating. About half the size of a ping pong ball, and most of the ones I ate had no pit. Tasty, very sweet-definitely reminded me a of a peach, but not much depth to the flavor.
They really are beautiful trees when they flower, and most seem to have a naturally pleasing form without much if any pruning.
There is a front yard around here with two Kousa bushes. One has good fruit: large size, taste, and often seedless. I always make sure to walk my dog by there. The other is terrible; the fruit never seem to finish ripening, and are hard and dry inside (though they do have the interesting property of being red on the inside). Luck of the draw, I suppose. Sadly, the Kousa in my yard tends toward the inedible side. Squirrels eat them all before me anyway.
I need to amend my previous statement. The other tree did not actually have terrible fruit, it just wasn’t ripe yet. It is now in season and producing golf-ball kousa berries of comparable quality to the other tree, which is basically done. To give everyone an idea of how variable the fruit can be, here are the insides of fruit from four different trees.
As with most fruit, I think the lighter-colored pulp taste a little better, but the red one is probably healthier.
I was thinking of peaches specifically. I prefer white peaches to yellow, but that’s subjective taste. But similarly, honeydew is better than cantaloupe, and that’s an objective fact.
You mean subjective, right? Of common melons grown in this country, I find the yellow fleshed Crenshaw to be the queen of them all. Honeydews are the queen of bland (in my entirely objective opinion )- nothing but sugar and juice.
Folks who like white peaches more than yellow prefer delicately flavored fruit- maybe their palates are more sensitive than those that like more acid and stronger flavor. It is strange, but I’ve noticed (quite unscientifically) that folks with the more “jaded” palates tend to be more critical about food in general.
)- nothing but sugar and juice.