Jabuticaba

Marli took us to her family’s chacara (farm) last Wednesday afternoon. When her father bought the farm he planted fruit and nut trees all over the property and around the perimeter he planted white pines which are now massive and make you feel especially tiny as you walk beside them. It was a beautiful day, and so fun to have Marli take us around to see all the different fruit trees . I don’t know if I’ll be able to remember them all, but there were trees (and vines) of cashew, macadamia, pecan, tamarind, mango, orange, coffee, grape, passion fruit, pear, star fruit, and papaya, but our favourite of all was the jabuticaba (ja-boo-chee-cah-bah).

Speaking in terms of theme and variation, Jabuticaba is definitely the variation of a theme. I would never have imagined a fruit tree like it. In fact, it’s the kind of tree you come to expect to come across in a Dr. Seuss book. Jabuticaba fruit are small and perfectly round and they look like something of a cross between a cherry and a grape. They have a thick skin that you don’t eat, like on concord grapes. You pop the white insides into your mouth, and there’s a crunchy seed in the centre that you can eat. The flavour of the fruit is something like a black currant. The coolest part about them, though, is the way they grow on the tree. They grow directly on the branches and trunk of the tree, attached in bunches by short green stems that you can’t actually see until you start picking them. By far, this was the easiest fruit picking I’ve ever done. You can just run your hand along the tree and the Jabuticaba fall into your bucket below. This is no Blueberries for Sal picking. It's more like, "Kuplink-kuplank-ku-WOAH the whole bucket is full!"

Jabuticaba trees from afar - cute and unassuming:

Jabuticaba up close:

Jabuticaba up closer:

After seeing Jabuticaba trees, Jess and I talked about how amazing Life is . . . of all the different life forms that exist on the earth, you can't divide them into right ways and wrong ways of growing, for instance. Life forms are so vast, and yet each is so unique. There’s definite organization, and yet somehow Life is still spontaneous - full of amazing surprises that don’t quite fit the mold . . . like the Jabuticaba.