Atemoya
The atemoya, is a hybrid of two fruits ¨C the sugar apple and the cherimoya ¨C which are both native to the American tropics. This fruit is popular in Taiwan, where it is known as the "pineapple sugar apple" .and due to this name sometimes wrongly believed to be a cross between the sugar apple and the pineapple.
An atemoya is normally heart-shaped or rounded, with pale-green, easily bruised, bumpy skin. Near the stem the skin is bumpy as it is in the sugar apple but become smoother like the Cherimoya on the bottom. The flesh is not segmented like that of the Sugar Apple, bearing more similarity to that of the Cherimoya. It is very juicy and smooth, tasting slightly sweet and a little tart, reminiscent of a pina colada. The taste also resembles vanilla from its sugar apple parent. There are many inedible, toxic black seeds throughout the flesh of the atemoya. When ripe, the fruit can be scooped out of the shell and eaten chilled. |
| Atemoya . was developed by crossing cherimoya (Annona cherimola) with sugar apple (Annona squamosa). The resulting fruits were of superior quality to the sugar apple and were given the name "atemoya", a combination of "ate", an old Mexican name for sugar apple, and "moya" from cherimoya. Subsequently, in 1917, Edward Simmons at Miami¡¯s Plant Introduction Station successfully grew hybrids that survived a drop in temperature to 26.5oF, showing atemoya¡¯s hardiness derived from one of its parents, the cherimoya. |
