Trying New Fruits in Turkey: What Are These Fuzzy Green Pods?
We encountered an intriguing new specimen at our neighborhood farmers market today. Alongside the darkly glistening mulberries, leggy bananas and pyramids of oranges was a woven basket filled with fuzzy, celadon colored pods.
With delightful ignorance and curiosity, we purchased 5 Turkish Lira’s worth (less than $1 USD).
It took only a gentle bite along a pod’s seam to expose its interior. With a loud “crack!” it revealed a tender, white, almond-shaped seed. The fuzzy edible exterior had the crisp texture of an unripe peach and a mouth-puckering tart taste. The soft interior seed held a delicate grassy flavor.
Inspired by Vietnam’s custom of adding salt to sour fruit, we sprinkled our new mystery snacks with smoked sea salt and happily crunched away.
But what were we eating??
As it turns out (thanks Google!), these unusual treats are green almonds, AKA young almond fruit.
Almonds are a fruit?!
Our mystery fruits’ almond shaped interiors aren’t merely resemblant of almonds; they are almonds — just not at the stage of maturity we’re accustomed to seeing. Despite almonds being nutritionally categorized as nuts, they’re not actually nuts. Commercially-sold raw and roasted almonds are in fact the seeds of the almond fruit. (Who knew?! (we didn’t know (did you know?)))
Almond fruits’ botanic relatives are peaches, with whom they share their signature fuzzy exterior. Both of these stone fruits belong to the prunus family whose other well known members include cherries, plums and apricots.
Why haven’t we seen almond fruit before?
Green almonds, AKA fresh almonds, are an ephemeral springtime treat that usually appear April-May, as is the case for other short-season delicacies such as fiddlehead ferns and garlic ramps. However, it’s not just their brief window of availability that make almond fruit so elusive; almond trees cannot grow in most areas of the world.
The world’s leading producers of almonds are California, USA; Spain; Iran; Morocco; Turkey; Italy and Australia where mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers provide the ideal conditions for almond trees. Therefore, unless you live near one of these areas (as we currently do in Istanbul, Turkey), you’re unlikely to encounter freshly picked young almonds in your normal shopping routines.
But keep your eyes peeled in specialty grocers! Foodies and celebrity chefs throughout the world are putting out the call for green almond shipments from California and the Middle East. Please let us know if you see any sold near you and how you decide to incorporate them into your menus.
Afiyet olsun!
