0 WHAT IS SWEETSOP?

Sweetsop or Sugar Apple, is a species of Annona native to the tropical Americas and widely grown in El Salvador, India, Pakistan and the Philippines. Its exact native range is unknown due to extensive cultivation, but thought to be in the Caribbean; the species was described from Jamaica.

The fruit looks a bit like a pine cone, and are about 10 cm in diameter. Under the hard, lumpy skin is the fragrant, whitish flesh of the fruit. It is slightly grainy, a bit slippery, very sweet and very soft. The seeds are scattered through the fruit flesh; the seed coats are blackish-brown.





Sugar apple (right), with Taiwanese
 "pineapple shijia" (left).

There are also new varieties being developed in Taiwan. There is a pineapple sugar-apple, which is similar in sweetness but has a very different taste. Like the name suggests, it tastes like pineapple. The arrangement of seeds is in spaced rows, with the fruit's flesh filling most of the fruit and making grooves for the seeds, instead of the flesh only occurring around the seeds.


Interesting Facts:

• Monkeys will not eat them since they contain too many seeds.
• Sugar-apple fruit is high in calories and is a good source of iron.
• In the Philippines, the fruit is commonly eaten by the Philippine Fruit Bat (kabag or kabog) which then spreads the seeds from island to island. In the Philippines there is a company that produces Sugar apple wine.

Source(s):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar-