Frutero ~ an enthusiastic advertisement ~

[asakiyume]

One of the things I loved when first we went to Colombia was the fruit--so many fruits I had never heard of or tried. And one of the things I loved when we went to Leticia was the fruit--so many *new* fruits I had never heard of or tried--and also: the fruit as ice cream.

For instance, at Helados Nai Pata (not actually in Leticia but in the town of Puerto Nariño): You can have araza (Eugenia stipitata), camu camu (Myriciaria dubra), and copoazu (Theobroma grandiflorum), none of which I'd heard of before arriving in Amazonas, or maracuya (passion fruit), guanabana (soursop), coco (coconut), and mora (which means "blackberry," but that picture is clearly a (red) raspberry, so who knows).



I was longing for tropical ice cream when we got home, so I looked to see if any of our local roadside ice cream shops had tropical flavors. Answer: no. This surprised me. I would have thought that the combination of cosmopolitanism from the local colleges and the large Puerto Rican community nearby would mean someone had created one. Maybe my search wasn't good enough? Well, in any case, I then moved to searching online for ice cream with tropical flavors, and I found (cue angel choir)
Frutero
(~ ~ its website ~ ~)
Passion fruit! Guanabana! Coconut! Guava! Mango! I was so excited. And they had stores in my area! I went to one, searched the ice cream aisle ... nothing.¹ Desperate, I went and ordered myself a six-pack.

And so it came to pass that one day a whole box of ice cream, preserved with ~ ~ dry ice ~ ~ arrived at my house:



And one of the two founders included a letter asking me to let him know what I thought--and after I tried the guanabana (which took me RIGHT BACK to Colombia), I wrote him an effusive letter, and THEN he set up a one-on-one focus-group session to collect my thoughts on ice cream, Frutero, its various flavors, and so on, all of which charmed and delighted me even more.

Meanwhile, I was noticing things about the ice cream. For instance, that it makes where it sources its fruit part of its package design (and most of it comes from Colombia) and how many of each fruit is in a pint:





I went back to the company's website and discovered that supporting farmers in Colombia as part of their mission. (I understand that claiming something is not the same thing as accomplishing it, and that how accomplishment is judged is a whole other issue, but at the very, very least, it shows that you want to appeal to people who care about the mission, and if those people are your customers, they are liable to keep you honest.) So I was even more favorably disposed to the company. Meanwhile, they sent me a bunch of coupons and explained to me why I hadn't been able to find their ice cream in the supermarket I'd tried (see footnote below).

Sure enough, when I looked in the right place, there were ice creams!



I have mixed feelings about the supermarket experience. I've made purchases in several (because I'm an apostle--as this entry shows--and wanted to buy some from a supermarket near my dad so he could try it). One supermarket (the one near my dad) carried only one flavor--guava. Now guava is wakanomori's favorite, and I like it a lot too, but.... mmmmm... I wish that supermarket carried more flavors. The supermarket near me didn't seem to have a full complement either, but it could just be that it had been a while since they'd had a delivery. More worrying was that some of the pints were a little dented, and one had a lid that lifted right off. That doesn't bode well for a new customer's first experience. Still, it's great to be able to buy just one pint at a time ;-)

As you can see, I like the ice cream a whole lot--I think the coconut has the most intense flavor, followed by guava, and I really like the guanabana and passion fruit too. The mango is very nice, but not quite as intensely mango-y as, for example, the guava is guava-y. The tangerine is very good but familiar, and the pineapple I haven't tried.

I wanted to share in case YOU TOO would like to have some tropical ice cream. If you have a store near you, you can click on the link at the website to get a coupon for two dollars off two pints. The store are mainly in the northeast and California, but there's a scattering thought the south and southwest. In the north or in other countries, alas, you cannot access this (though people like anna_wing no doubt have access to local tropical ice cream).

Because I'm in promotor mode, I'm also going to interview the founders. I admire people who create things, and I'm very interested in aspects of their story (like the connection with Colombia), so look for that in November 😌

¹There was a good reason for this: the supermarket I was looking in (Stop & Shop) carries it in its natural foods section instead of its ice cream section.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

Could we perhaps... have a little ice cream tasting session while I am in town... ESPECIALLY interested in the passion fruit and the guava - Have I ever had guava? I'm not sure I have. I've definitely had passion fruit - among other things, you sent me that delicious passion fruit curd one time! And my local ice cream place occasionally has a passion fruit sorbet which is unbeatable in hot weather.

[asakiyume]

YOU BET

[athenais]

I love tropical fruit and tropical fruit in anything...and I might well be willing to take some Lactaid so I could experience FOUR GUAVAS IN ONE PINT! I do love guava flavor. I'll see if I can find it here.

[asakiyume]

Excellent! If you go to their website, there's a place where you can type in your zip code and see what supermarkets carry it near you. There were a lot in So Cal; not sure about the San Francisco area (... which is where you are?)

[athenais]

Yes, Bay Area/San Francisco and there’s nothing closer than a twenty minute drive.

[asakiyume]

That's a shame! Well if you're ever out whatever direction the store is in ...

[threemeninaboat]

I will look for it!

[asakiyume]

*fingers crossed* Remember that if your nearest store is a Stop & Shop, it's in the natural-foods section.

[rachelmanija]

Thanks! I have this near me and I will try it.

[asakiyume]

Awesome! I look forward to hearing which flavor you like best!

[cgbookcat1]

Oooh, this looks delicious, especially the guava! I will check my grocery the next time I go (unfortunately I just got back from it when I saw your post).

[asakiyume]

Hurray! I hope (and expect!) you will find it delicious!

[wayfaringwordhack]

Awesome story for the ice cream hunt AND the human interaction. :D

I guess I am spoiled because we find tropical flavors easily here (and could in Egypt and France, even in the supermarkets, except guava) but we are kinda picky and mostly frequent artisanal glaciers.

I think I will forever associate guava with making guava jam in Egypt, where the embassy chef had given J his recipe and we would make jar after jar of it because the fruits were plentiful and good. :)

[asakiyume]

I'm glad you're spoiled in some things, because you sure have to put up with a fair number of others!

Guava jam! Sounds delicious!

[wayfaringwordhack]

because you sure have to put up with a fair number of others!

Ain't that the truth. I am trying to work up the energy to make a post about one of such things.

[anna_wing]

Those flavours sound fabulous!


During mango season here, Housekeeper buys them in large quantities, and I get given a lot too, both for eating and for freezing (after having been peeled and chopped) to be made into mango ice-cream and mango sauce for the rest of year. We do the same for the Thai strawberries when they come into season too.

[asakiyume]

Thai strawberries! Are they an actual strawberry variety, or a fruit like a strawberry that's called strawberry because of the resemblance (the way North American robins are called "robin" even though they're a completely different type of bird from a European robin)?

Does your mango ice cream have a very rich mango flavor? Because it's the only one of Frutero's flavors that possibly could use a recipe tweak. It's still a lovely ice cream, creamy and pleasant, but it's just ... not quite as intensely mango-y a it could be.

[anna_wing]

Yes, they're real strawberries. I suspect that they're bred from the Japanese/Korean variety, because they're very similar - very firm and sweet, and strongly strawberry-flavoured. Absolutely delicious, and generally superior to pretty much any strawberry I've ever had elsewhere (US, Australia, UK, Chile). The Thais are major powers in the agricultural and horticultural sector. There are plants that are apparently practically extinct in the wild from habitat loss, but which survive in and because of Thai companies breeding them for the garden trade. The South American Griffinia genus, for instance.

Yes, my mango ice-cream tastes quite definitely of mango, and not any old generic mango either. You can tell which variety it was made with, basically because the mangos were perfectly ripe, or even slightly over-ripe.

[asakiyume]

my mouth is watering at the thought of your mango ice cream! And that's so interesting about the Thai research! I bet Paolo Bacigalupi knew that when he set The Windup Girl there. That novel is set in a climate-changed future where a handful of evil Monsanto-like companies control all crops and create managed starvation and disease to keep people under their thumb, but in Thailand they're secretly bringing back crops that have been lost. There's a triumphal scene involving monks and a seed bank; it was great. (Can't recommend the novel without some huge caveats; it's male gazy, has rapes, has an outsider's take on Thailand, etc. etc., but I did enjoy aspect of it very much.)

[anna_wing]

It does need properly ripe fruit to be any good.

I couldn't bring myself to read that book after (a) the genetically engineered girl was described as having "Labrador genes" and (b) seeing that his acknowledgements included not a single Thai, only Westerners living in Thailand (who as a community are widely known to have their own issues, let's say).

[asakiyume]

Yeah, I think you made a wise decision. I found things I liked in it, but I felt very negative about a lot of it. There are plenty of other books out there without those minuses.

[cmcmck]

'Mora' is 'mure' in French.

As a fruit bat, I'd love all this!

[asakiyume]

Wouldn't that make a cute picture! A fruit bat enjoying ice cream ^_^

[amaebi]

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Will return shortly and click through.

[asakiyume]

I have a sinking suspicion that you live in a Frutero desert :(

(But if you're feeling very self-indulgent--as I clearly was--you could order yourself a six-pack)

[amaebi]

I do live in a Frutero desert, and am not surprised to find it so.

But I am That Rich.

[asakiyume]

Hurray! Lucky Frutero, and I hope you feel, as I did, that it's worth it.

... I also hope that these guys really are making a good-faith effort to help farmers. I will ask some questions in my interview...

[oracne]

Niiiiiiiiiiice!!! Nom.

[asakiyume]

:D

So I've gone on and on about this ice cream, but what's a special food treat that you enjoy indulging in?

[oracne]

Ice cream/gelato/sorbet is right up there. Key Lime Pie. Blondies. Salty toasted corn and also buttered popcorn. Spicy food of all kinds. Spicy/sweet combinations. ...I could go on for a while.

[asakiyume]

Everything you're mentioning is making me lick my lips. I love all these things too!

[queenoftheskies]

How wonderful! I'm so glad you found it!

Here, there are a lot of tropical fruits in the stores and sold along the roadside. Also, lots of frozen tropical fruit bars. I can't actually eat the ice cream due to the sugar, but I should look to see if they have it in the stores because it wouldn't surprise me if they do.

[asakiyume]

I'm pretty sure they do! I did a search before making the post. Yeah, in SoCal you're lucky with tropical fruits! Wonderful ^_^

[sartorias]

I will pass this info on to some locals, who I know like such flavors!

[asakiyume]

Awesome! I hope they enjoy!

[yamamanama]

Reminds me that I have a Thai cookbook somewhere but none of the recipes are in any way feasable to make if you don't actually live in Thailand. I'm not sure where, but...

I do have access to it via the Library of Dreams. Langsart? And it says you can substitute with another fruit: the longan. If you don't have Asian citron, use tangelo.

I don't know why I'm calling it a cookbook. It's a historical curiosity and catalogue of traditional cooking methods that the writer wanted to preserve.

[asakiyume]

It's amazing the stuff you can get your hands on if you try, though! Especially for you, in eastern MA, I bet you could get what you need in Asian food stores. But also, I've sometimes ordered things from private sellers!

The thing you have, is it a physical object? Is it a one-of-a-kind book, or something published, or--?

[yamamanama]

It's a published cookbook.