dancanada

What? Tropical fruit? In Canada?
Believe it or not, Canada is a good place for exotic goodies. For one thing the Canadian agriculture department is not as worried about introducing pests and diseases as the American agriculture department. For another thing, Toronto, and many other Canadian cities are quite ethnically diverse with large Asian populations, and they crave and are willing to pay for the fruits of their homelands. As a result of easy importation and high demand one can go to the “old Chinatown” market places of Toronto and buy fresh mangosteen, durian, jackfruit, soursop, sweetsop, dragonfruit, rambutan, lytchee, longan, queenpa, and other fruits. In fact, there are stores there that sell nothing but fruit.

My own tropical fruit adventure in Toronto happened just this last summer on my second trip to that city. I had been told that Toronto did have exotic fruits in its marketplaces, and I stocked up in anticipation of the visit. On entering Canada this made for an interesting encounter with customs. I was asked to declare if I had any soil or plant materials… and I truthfully disclosed I was carrying peat moss with me; naturally the customs agent was bemused by this. I explained that I'd heard there were all sorts of exotic fruits in Toronto that I couldn't get in the US and I planned to put the seeds in peat moss while we stayed at the bed and breakfast. The customs agent became more skeptical and concerned; I might as well have asked him if I could remove his gallbladder and dance on it. “You're going to grow plants in a bed and breakfast in seven days?” he asked, he then continued “Are you planning to bring back the seeds?” After I told him that, indeed I was bringing back the seeds he let me pass, and seemed to make a mental note that I was demented.
The first stop (after checking in to the bed and breakfast) was old Chinatown to search for the fabled fruits. I did not know what would be in stock or where exactly I should look (I had some street names but no addresses). Walking into Chinatown we started seeing some sidewalk produce stands (spilling out from the adjacent stores) and after three or so of these I saw a stand, which was selling mangosteen. I was so excited I yelled out “Oh mangosteen!”. Eventually we walked into the heart of the fruit selling area (the northwest corner of Spadania & Dundas). There at each new discovery I shouted out what I'd found “Rambutan!”, “Dragonfruit!”…. At this point my wife, who enjoys fruit but only as much as a normal person, became a bit perturbed and asked me to calm down. On this first foray I purchased several mangosteens, 10 rambutan, and a dragonfruit and I consumed most of them that evening after dinner.

Toronto, financial and cultural capital of Canada, home to the third largest theater district in the world, home of “the tallest freestanding structure” (are there taller ones that stand with the aid of others?), exotic fruit paradise. What? Tropical fruit? In Canada? Believe it or not, Canada is a good place for exotic goodies. For one thing the Canadian agriculture department is not as worried about introducing pests and diseases as the American agriculture department. For another thing, Toronto, and many other Canadian cities are quite ethnically diverse with large Asian populations, and they crave and are willing to pay for the fruits of their homelands. As a result of easy importation and high demand one can go to the “old Chinatown” market places of Toronto and buy fresh mangosteen, durian, jackfruit, soursop, sweetsop, dragonfruit, rambutan, lytchee, longan, queenpa, and other fruits. In fact, there are stores there that sell nothing but fruit. My own tropical fruit adventure in Toronto happened just this last summer on my second trip to that city. I had been told that Toronto did have exotic fruits in its marketplaces, and I stocked up in anticipation of the visit. On entering Canada this made for an interesting encounter with customs. I was asked to declare if I had any soil or plant materials… and I truthfully disclosed I was carrying peat moss with me; naturally the customs agent was bemused by this. I explained that I'd heard there were all sorts of exotic fruits in Toronto that I couldn't get in the US and I planned to put the seeds in peat moss while we stayed at the bed and breakfast. The customs agent became more skeptical and concerned; I might as well have asked him if I could remove his gallbladder and dance on it. “You're going to grow plants in a bed and breakfast in seven days?” he asked, he then continued “Are you planning to bring back the seeds?” After I told him that, indeed I was bringing back the seeds he let me pass, and seemed to make a mental note that I was demented. The first stop (after checking in to the bed and breakfast) was old Chinatown to search for the fabled fruits. I did not know what would be in stock or where exactly I should look (I had some street names but no addresses). Walking into Chinatown we started seeing some sidewalk produce stands (spilling out from the adjacent stores) and after three or so of these I saw a stand, which was selling mangosteen. I was so excited I yelled out “Oh mangosteen!”. Eventually we walked into the heart of the fruit selling area (the northwest corner of Spadania & Dundas). There at each new discovery I shouted out what I'd found “Rambutan!”, “Dragonfruit!”…. At this point my wife, who enjoys fruit but only as much as a normal person, became a bit perturbed and asked me to calm down. On this first foray I purchased several mangosteens, 10 rambutan, and a dragonfruit and I consumed most of them that evening after dinner.	Mangosteen (USDA)
Dragon Fruit	During the trip I tried fresh, durian, “cape gooseberry” (a tomato cousin with a pleasant flavor somewhat like a resinous pineapple), dragonfruit, and Hayden variety mangos for the first time. I had consumed fresh rambutan, mangosteen, lytchee, longan, and Keit mangos as well as frozen durian before. Fresh durian was indeed quite different from frozen (as I had heard) the frozen durian has a uniform texture and mostly uniform flavor. The frozen seems to be creamier and milder, whereas the fresh version is occasionally cloyingly sweet with floral overtones. The fresh version is chewy near the surface and is sweeter and more floral there as well. It is like a frozen durian only with intense longan and some jackfruit overtones. I must confess that I found out I was a durian cretin as I prefer the frozen form to the fresh (the fresh is just too sweet and cloying for me). The dragonfruit was an absolutely gorgeous fruit to behold a large, roughly teardrop shaped fruit that was mostly bright red with these little triangular structures bending off of it (which were yellow, green, and other colors). Unfortunately, I think the ones I got were either inferior varieties or picked too early for they had very little flavor. Granted dragonfruit is always supposed to be subtle with no tartness, however, these fruits were bland to the point of near tastelessness. The first one I tried had almost no flavor or sweetness; the only flavor was a tiny kohlrabi overtone. The second one had some sweetness and some floral overtones, but it was much less sweet than a kiwi (which it had been compared to in terms of flavor). Granted many people (like me) have had poor experiences with dragonfruit (namely I think from poor varieties or early picked fruit), and others just don't care for a subtle fruit lacking in sourness; but I'm pretty sure that good dragonfruit is much better than what I had. The reason I'm convinced of this is because I have had other cactus fruits which were much tastier than the dragonfruit I had (also subtle but with more sweetness and floral overtones) and the growers of those generally say they are lesser versions of dragonfruit. On the other hand, it seems that (outside the tropics) bad dragonfruit is the norm so buyer beware.
On the mangos I was glad to see that (in Canada at least) produce is not deliberately marketed in a deceptive fashion. Instead, most of the mangos I saw were labeled by their variety name- not some goofy local marketing name. In the US (outside of some fruit stand) mangos are always given some arbitrary name. Tommy Atkins (a disgustingly bland mango that should be avoided at all costs) is sold under a variety of strange names such as “large mango”, “jumbo mango”…. Ataulfo (a flat solid orange color mango, probably a Philippine type, with good flavor and fiery overtones near the skin) is sold as “champagne mango”, and many other names. Keitt mangos (an equal in flavor to Ataulfo, but lacking its fiery overtone) are also sold as “champagne mango”, “cherry mango”, and “strawberry mango”…. The only indication one gets of the variety in the US is the PLU codes. In the fruit markets of Toronto, I mainly saw the variety name given, so I saw “Keit”, “T Atkins”, “Hayden”, and “Julie”. I probably should have tried the “Julie” but I just tried the “Keit” and “Hayden” and, unfortunately, my mango selection skills were a bit off and I got ones that were a tad overripe. Thus they were good but not great quality.	Hayden Mango (USDA)
Rambutan (USDA)	The fresh rambutan was high quality, though I did have to pick from the box where they were stored as some had some fungus on them, and others were seriously under ripe. This was made somewhat difficult by the “helpful” store employee who kept wanting to fill up my bag for me telling me “they are all good”, but I was just persistent in getting the best rambutan. I had fresh rambutan shipped in from a grower in Puerto Rico before and these rambutan were equal in quality to those. The chief differences were that these were “freestone” rambutan (meaning no flesh clung to the seed) and these didn't have the pleasant balancing sourness that the ones from Puerto Rico had. However, they were sweet and flavorful. “Freestone” rambutan isn't quite as big advantage as one would think seeing as the seed skin/shell comes off with the flesh and that (owing to its toughness) is not very pleasant to eat. Many people prefer lytchee to rambutan, and perhaps I've never had truly good lytchee (this seems quite plausible as the lytchee I've had doesn't look as pretty as the ones in pictures), but I found the rambutan far superior. The lytchee is indeed much juicier and this is a plus, but the flavor of the lytchee I've had is somewhat bland with a kind of muddiness to it. The rambutan, in contrast, is a clean flavor of floral overtones and sweetness. The longan I had in Canada was unusually flavorful, it was actually sweeter than the lytchee and a much stronger flavor than I'd ever had before (sometimes a tiny bit too strong).
The mangosteens were good but somewhat disappointing. For me the best thing about mangosteen is its balanced flavor. First there is the fruity/floral flavor (which is much like the same component in a plum), then there is a strong sweetness which is matched by an intense and pleasing tartness (not like the broad grating sourness of actual plums, more like the pleasant piercing tartness of a really good peach, though more intense). These mangosteens all lacked the tartness I crave in them, thus their flavor was a bit “off balance” but they were still pleasant eating. The prices in the Toronto fruit markets were quite inexpensive: rambutan was around 4 Canadian dollars per pound (about $3 US), the mangosteen was about the same in price. Cape gooseberry and fresh durian were probably the most expensive per pound but still highly reasonable for imported fruit. In short a trip to a major Canadian city is the next best thing to visiting the tropics for tropical fruit.	Durian

Rare Fruit Sojourn in Canada

Toronto, financial and cultural capital of Canada, home to the third largest theater district in the world, home of “the tallest freestanding structure” (are there taller ones that stand with the aid of others?), exotic fruit paradise.