Well, look at that #4 Mamones

Currently in season: mamones.

A bunch this size, you can buy on the street for what amounts to around 5 or 10 cents.

I thought they were tiny limes, and in fact one of their names (they have about a million names) is related to lime--and there is a tangy-ness to them that is vaguely lime-like. But that is where the similarity ends.

Inside is a fruit--well--the pit to a fruit with a teensy bit of sticky gushy stringy slimy delicious pulp clinging to the pit.
It is completely impossible to
remove this fruity pulp with your
fingers, or a kitchen implement.
You've just got to suck it off the pit.
(I hear that's where their Nicaraguan
name "mamones" comes from.)

The mushy slippery fruity stuff is good. Kind of like a cross between peeled grapes, cantelope and lime. It's super intense in flavor. So sweet you can hardly stand it and sour enough to pucker your cheeks all at once.



The leathery skin is just dying to pop open. You can just give it a little bite, and it neatly splits in half. The fruit pulp looks kind of salmon-y beige and the pit inside takes up almost all of the space. You need to eat a whole bundle to get any substance. I was told that the pit is edible too. But the lady who told me that also spit her seed out--so I wasn't gonna chance it.

the light colored stuff in the middle is the pit

It's a great "snacky" kind of fruit, because you can chew and suck the pulp off the pit for a good long while. It is really stuck on there!


Mamones: weird and delicious.
You don't see that every day!
(Well, I guess I do. At least in June.)