Egg Fruit from Vietnam

Recently many housewives have been intrigued by a new fruit called Egg Fruit. Sandakan in Sabah seems to be making in roads into this fruit cultivation. Miri has a few people growing it and Sibu according to my friends also has several fruit trees which are already fruiting. The fruits are already sold in the Limbang tamu where I picked up a few..The vendors call them buah mentega!! It is called canistel and originates in Mexico and Central America.


"The canistel grows up to 10 meters (33 ft) high, and produces orange-yellow fruit, also called yellow sapote, up to 7 centimeters (2.8 in) long, which are edible raw. Canistel flesh is sweet, with a texture often compared to that of a cooked egg yolk, hence its colloquial name of "eggfruit." It is closely related to the Mamey sapote and abiu."

"The plant's name in the Vietnamese language is cây trứng gà (“chicken egg” plant) because of the fruit's appearance. It also has the Vietnamese name lekima. This is very unusual because Vietnamese is a tonal language which uses predominantly monosyllabic words. It appears that this name derives from the word lucuma. The unusual name "Lekima" has been included in the list of typhoon names, and was applied to a storm that devastated north-central Vietnam and killed from 42 to 5"

So look out for these fruits in the market or in your friends' garden...My own photos will be posted soon.  (I am having some computer problem at the moment...and cannot upload any photos from my camera..)