Best Fruit Poll.

workhorse fruits, humble children of the soil: apple, chili pepper, lemon, lime, pear, tomato; avocado belongs here too despite its current surplus of signification

definitively fruity fruits I am always happy to see: blackberry, blueberry, grape, peach, plum, raspberry, strawberry (a top-tier strawberry is truly amazing tho), watermelon

alright, but not going out of my way: cranberry, kiwi, orange, pineapple (on another level when grilled tbh), starfruit

fruits I like but am indefensibly lazy about dealing with, can be sublime if someone else does the work: nectarine, mandarin, pomegranate

genuinely not into: apricot, grapefruit

can be great but disappoint too often: banana, honeymelon, mango (could be the correct answer if I lived elsewhere), rockmelon (both melons are here b/c my parents forced me to eat middling fruit salads growing up)

big fan but these feel distinct and not-as-fruit-like: coconut, date

I kind of forget the differences between these because I am north american: guava, papaya, passionfruit

haven't eaten enough to have an opinion: lychee, mulberry (never), pawpaw (never)

the correct answer: cherry

I didn't want any overlap, but "makes a transcendent pie and/or jam" is another useful category imho

also on second thought I wonder if plum should be in the "disappoints too often" category

Guava, papaya, and passionfruit grow here in North America, though.

Also, mango has a nasty manky taste to me.

xp ah that's true! at any rate, personal life experience & cultural background means I haven't eaten them much

mangos tasted like gasoline to me until I ate some in India

Anything but banana and watermelon.

poll is a lot harder without tomato. runner up would be apple I guess, because of baked goods with apple in them

yeah the Indian & Pakistani mangoes are one of the most pronounced "you haven't really tasted one until you've tasted these" things. chaunsa and anwar ratol are the types to try

I think a good banana wins this, but rob is right: too often disappointing. Something between: apple, orange or cherry. Not voting tomato or date on principle.

is anybody besides me a little angry all the time that we only get to eat the cavendish

camaraderie otm

https://www.friedas.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Friedas_Mangosteen.jpg

Voting lychee but I enjoy it most as an ingredient or flavor e.g., in ice cream

voting for the one I can't live without, which is lime

I'm not that big on fruit (unless you count wine). I mean fruit's OK, but it doesn't play a large part in my diet compared to vegetables, grains, legumes, dairy or meat. I voted for the dark horse in this race: tomato.

Top favorites: Mirabelle plums, Sauerish apples that have been out in the cold, Strawberries

Exotic: Persimmon, Papaya, Mangoes, avocado, dates

In pies / dessert: Apricot, Blueberry, Cherries, Currants, Rhubarb

Seasonal: Melon, Clementines

One last word for homemade lemonade

wait, my actual write in answer is cold tangerines

o I see mandarin, I guess that counts

Does sleeve live at sea y/n

sadly not

this list is totally incomplete without durian

wow i'm kinda shocked that my honest answer is banana. i used to hate bananas until i started getting the organic ones. now i eat multiple bananas every day and never get sick of them.

a banana in a smoothie is essential imho. it's a killer flavor in all kinds of contexts. it's extremely easy and pleasing to eat. sold almost everywhere. can't stress enough how crucial it is to get organic ones though. whatever treatment they apply to the regular ones turns them completely evil.

I swear we've already had a fruit poll but I can't find it so maybe it doesn't exist after all.

Unanswerable. I've pondered the mysteries of at least 20 of these in regard to drink making, including the ones I'm allergic to. My personal favorites are prob coconut and passionfruit, but lime and watermelon are what I've worked with most. JCLC, come to my town sometime and I will make you several watermelon drinks, boozy or NA as you prefer.

There’s honestly too much to love here. My favourite sub-category of fruits is “fruits you have to fiddle with a little bit”; Lychees get a big shout out in that regard. Great fruit for fidget-enthusiasts

Other great category is “fruits that transport you back to your childhood”. Big shout out to the council mulberry tree out the back of my childhood home. You made spring a real event

nectarine for nostalgia reasons. my Nan used to grow them - i recently found a variety that tasted just like hers & it sent me to the moon with joy it was so good

plus they used to be my favorite stewed fruit hands down

xxp
FRUITS OF SUMMER

Strawberries the most overrated fruit. It’s not that they’re bad, but compared to all the other berries? They’ve got nothing going for them besides the previously mentioned ‘fidget factor’

i think one mitigating factor for many of these is like supermarket vs. fresh from the garden. afaict supermarket strawberries are barely edible. fresh from the garden they're fuckin unreal imo. tomatoes the same though it's easier to get decent tomatoes from the supermarket than it used to be.

nah, a sublime strawb is as good as fruit gets imho

xpost

This is true. I do remember strawberries tasting far better than they currently do. Even the best strawberry doesn’t top that charts, but I’ll take back my “worst of the berries” claim

I always want Star fruit to be better than it is. It’s a beautiful looking fruit.

not much of a fan of grapes in general, but i have always LOVED Concord Grapes

i have tasted dragonfruit but have no recollection of taste

I'd pick passionfruit (with chocolate) as a favorite flavor combo if this was the thread for that

grapes are probably the most reliably good-tasting fruit to get (along with apples) when you're in a grocery store in a small town with no human-food farms and a single shit food distribution network for everything and everyone.

Mulberries are incredible but since they travel very badly they’re almost never in shops. There’s a tree nearby in one of the Inns of Court that gave me about 500g, enough to make one big jar of jam, plus a few fresh berries for me, straight from the tree. Magnificent.

Also WTF in this case means Where’s The Figs?

they just seem fructose-y to me with no real discernable flavor profile

xp

Love fruit

Voted PEACH as a good peach on a sunny day is a very simple & accessible path to sublime vibes, it seems like the fruitiest of all fruits to me, actually perfect

although timing is everything, peaches are only good for a short time of year and then each individual fruit has an ideal ripeness time, takes practice to judge this journey from supermarket to fruit bowl to consumption, you have to work at it

only other I seriously considered was KIWIFRUIT, there have been gold kiwifruit round here recently that are absolutely mindblowing

Was gonna say… absolutely nothing in this world compares to a ripe peach (from one of the southern US states).

Also the secret ingredient in a delicious sangría.

xp Starfruit are so bland.

starfruit and dragon fruit are both all style no substance (though both can work in a fruit salad if used sparingly)

“Strawberries overrated” this is true of store bought berries but tiny wild ones are amazing

Voted peach over nectarine bc haven't had a terrific cherry in a couple years

i am coming out of my self-imposed exile for this post: i must give all praise to the paw-paw, truly the one good falling fruit and one of the most amazing things a person can ever taste— like a banana custard inside a green-brown shell. they’re so incredible that we have secret spots where we harvest them. if you are ever on in the mid-Atlantic during their brief season, seek them out.

see you all again in a week, go paw paw

I think in some ways the Meyer lemon is my favorite fruit. It is a cross between a citron and a tangerine. It is slightly sweeter than a lemon, has a thinner skin, rounder shape, and a slightly spicy orangey flavor.

According to wikipedia: “The Meyer lemon is commonly grown in China in garden pots as an ornamental tree. It became popular as a food item in the United States after being rediscovered by chefs such as Alice Waters at Chez Panisse during the rise of California cuisine starting in the 1970s.”

It is seen in gardens throughout California, and thrives even in foggy San Francisco. I have several friends with Meyer lemon trees in their yards.

Meyer lemons are really great in cooking, especially in braised dishes and with any kind of fish. My main interest in them began when I started cooking Moroccan tagines.

Since then I’ve been obsessed with Meyer lemons preserved in salt and lemon juice. The process of making jars of them is ridiculously easy, they last forever, and the salted lemons take on an even spicier character over time. My favorite recipe using them is Zuni’s pasta with preserved tuna, preserved lemons and pine nuts.

This year I tried making Meyer lemon marmalade, which is also great

since it feels like we're just choosing fruits to eat though, I'm going with raspberries. My father grew them on our property in upstate NY when I was a kid. We had them in some form or other for dessert pretty much every day in the summer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VEeaU-KLKs

In my early childhood we had figs and mulberries (red & white both) growing in the yard! glaring omissions both. fresh figs and mulberries are spiritual nourishment for me, an anchor to my past and a source of strength.

members of my extended family planted cuttings of that fig tree in london and long island, they grow despite the colder climate!

xp lol

in orbit you grew up around some of the best apple orchards anywhere! tho I can see your fruit reticence reflected in many of my midwestern family members (the mad berry-pickers aside)

I do love apples, it's true, and I'll bake the hell out of an Ida Red (I have 5 the size of softballs in my fridge right now) and I'm proud of our fruit--but I hardly ever think about sweet foods. It's okay! More for La Lechera.

Oh man apples, talk about dynamic range!
I have a joke about Red Delicious apples: It's definitely one out of those two things.
I like many kinds of apples, but Red Delicious, "how do you like them apples?"
I don't!

red delicious is the saddest of apples

I got a couple late-season peaches a week or two back and it was a huge mistake... mealy, mushy, flavorless
Better off with canned

whoever named the grapefruit when there was already a fruit named grape.......incompetent legend. i wish we could hang out

— erin chack (@ErinChack) October 25, 2024

Currently enjoying grapefruit jam with my porridge in the mornings.

It's called grapefruit because it hangs on the tree in bunches like grapes.

I bought a cherimoya for the first and it's hardly ripening at all (I guess that what happens when it's in the low 60s) -- does the paper bag trick work?

It's called grapefruit because it hangs on the tree in bunches like grapes

I walk by a grapefruit tree everyday and the fruit hangs no differently than an orange, lime or lemon tree, certainly not in 'bunches'

it totally hangs in bunches

Chinese shop near my work had durian, paid £20 for two pieces, no regrets, best fruit.

fwoooooot!!

mango in a curry is a blessing

what's that fruit they have in NZ that doesn't really export well but has a scent that makes you feel like you're living inside a poem by Coelridge or Rumi -- the feijoa -- given how rare they are outside of their range (I guess they're also in South America) they wouldn't stand a chance on this thread but their scent is so purely divine that I have sense-memories of just being in the room where I ate one

The combination of feijoas not storing/traveling well but being super-abundant and a common hedgerow plant means a lot of these kinds of scenes in NZ:

https://images.nzgeo.com/2020/06/164_Feijoas_07-866x1300.jpg

(via https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-peoples-fruit/ )

Brb booking flight to NZ

they sometimes sell feijoas at the sacramento farmers market!

mr veg loves them (developed a taste for them holidaying in nz)

i’m not as much of a fan, they taste like stamp glue to me lol

I live in New Zealand and have a huge feijoa tree in the front yard. It produces around 5000 fruit per year, although some are tiny.

Not actually a huge fan, the seeds get stuck in my teeth, but giving them away around the neighbourhood is a nice way to meet neighbours.

huge feijoa fan here, i also got mine at the Sacramento Farmers Market when i lived in the valley

new contender just dropped, where has this been all my life?!?! I am in love.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamansi

Oh, I have to small trees in my (London, UK) garden! They are good in gins.

*two

my sister sent me a jar of apricot/calamansis jam that is just unbelievably delicious, I want MOAR

No persimmon in this poll, no credibility

I’ve yet to have a persimmon experience that exceeded meh

helloooo donut peaches, omg where have you been all my life?!?!

xp Yes persimmons don't pass many pleasurability tests for me, except for maybe as a persimmon loaf

Also, I love the idea of donut peaches but they seem like kind of a gimmick to me and I don't think they have much flavor. It's like Fuji apples for me. Maybe I don't understand the subtlety of the flavor/texture or maybe haven't let them get ripe enough. That said, I will gladly eat them

I love the old fashioned juicy Georgia peaches with the fuzz, but they have been mostly hybridized away. I mentioned this before, but have you all noticed that today's peach fruit doesn't cling to the pit like it used to? And they've gotten rid of the juiciness, the fuzz and also most of the flavor? I guess that is what people prefer now, but peaches are demoted in my opinion way down the list from being a favorite fruit

it's nectarine season!! love them so much

Love the idea that Americans encountered flat peaches and thought: this fruits looks like a donut, yep, good name, will sell.

I guess that is what people prefer now,

I highly doubt it. My guess is that taste is down the list on traits they are hybridizing for behind yield, resistance to disease, and resistance to bruising.

How the hell with all these options did 7 people still vote banana?

Hollywood Squares: You're the world's most popular fruit.. what are you?
Paul Lynde: Humbled

(the answer was banana)