Now in season:
Zapote Negra.
About the size of an apple. The very black pulp is shiny, custardy and mild. Six or so smooth brown seeds nest in it. This is the first year we've eaten them. When we asked at the Coatepec market what to do with them, people looked at us in surprise. "Why you just break them open and eat them. Delicioius!" One woman gave us a recipe. Mix the flesh with pieces of orange and honey: muy dulce. As with much of the fruit here, zapotes negras are seasonal: here today, gone tomorrow.
I can see a relationship with mamey zapotes in the smooth, hard, oval seeds. But otherwise mamey zapotes seem quite different. They are larger, sort of football-shaped, with a rough tan skin and sweet- potato textured and colored pulp that in fact tastes a bit like sweet potatoes. It is both sweet and at times a little bit bitter. Mamey Zapotes seeds, though similar looking to zapotes negras, are much larger, and there is only one in each fruit.