Pride of New Zealand
It may not be native, but feijoa fruit is beloved in its adoptive land
In New Zealand, “the people’s fruit” is a source of national pride, emblematic of kindness and community. The feijoa, also known as pineapple guava, is a prolific green, egg-shaped fruit with a cream-colored center. It’s a popular backyard tree for New Zealanders, explains Donna Cox, a member of the Rotary Club of Papakura, New Zealand, “as the trees take little looking after and usually crop well.” Sometimes too well. “The fruit doesn’t store well, and if there is a glut of it, people will often share them with friends and neighbors,” she says. “It is not uncommon to see buckets of the fruit outside homes with a sign saying ‘Free, help yourself.’”
While the evergreen bushes thrive in locations with cool winters and moderate summers, commercial feijoa production beyond New Zealand is limited. The fruits are also grown in Uruguay, Japan, Italy, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and in the U.S. in California.
Image credit: Alice Lindstrom
A KIWI COMPANION: Feijoas received their name from a Brazilian naturalist, João da Silva Feijo, and are native to a pocket of southern Brazil and northern Uruguay. It’s unclear how they made their way to New Zealand, but horticulturalist Hayward Wright began propagating them and advertising them in his plant catalogs in the 1920s (the same decade he developed a commercial cultivar of today’s kiwifruit).
DELICACIES TO TRY: To eat a feijoa, cut it in half and scoop out the flesh with a spoon. Once you’ve had your fill of fresh fruit, try combining feijoa with apple to make a pie or crumble, or adding it to fruit salad, loaves, cakes, jam, salsa, or chutneys.
This story originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of Rotary magazine
FEIJOA AND APPLE SAUCE
2 cooking apples
2-3 feijoas
2 Tbsp sugar
- Peel and remove the cores from the apples and top and tail and peel the feijoas.
- Finely dice both apples and feijoas.
- Place in a small saucepan with 1/4 cup of water and the sugar.
- Cool for 8 minutes until apple and feijoa are slightly pulpy.
- Serve warm with roast pork.
FEIJOA MUFFINS
75g butter, melted
1 cup finely chopped feijoa flesh
2 large eggs
Finely grated rind of 1 orange
1/4 cup orange juice
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp sugar
- In a large bowl, beat the butter until it is liquid.
- Halve the feijoas and scoop out their centers with a teaspoon.Chop feijoas into pieces no bigger than peas. Pack into a cup measure. Mix this into the melted butter with a fork.
- Add the unbeaten eggs, orange rind, and then orange juice made up to volume with a little lemon juice if necessary. Mix until everything is combined.
- Sprinkle the sugar and self-raising flour over the mixture in the bowl and fold it in without over mixing.
- Divide the mixture between 12 medium or 24 mini muffin pans that have been buttered or sprayed.
- Mix the cinnamon and the second measure of sugar, and sprinkle it on the muffins.
- Bake at 410 degrees F for 10-15 minutes, until the centers spring back when pressed.
- Serve slightly warm for best flavor.