あけび...Akebi

On Thursday night a student mentioned at the start of class that she had brought some "akebi".  I didn't have a clue as to what she was talking about but one other student's face lit up to show that he knew.  After class, we all stepped out to check out a woven basket lid filled with akebi.  It was then that I recalled seeing them back in 2012 or so.

"Akebi" is a somewhat odd looking fruit.  The exterior of the ones my student had brought were covered with a brown skin that gave the fruit a resemblance to potatoes.  All of these particular examples had split open to reveal their payload of white fruit flesh and a whole lot of black seeds.   To the uninitiated, the contents are a bit challenging looking.  I didn't tackle one because of that.  The fuzzy white coat of the fruit "sack" is what made me pause and decide not to sample any.

As it turned out, there were seven unclaimed akebi on Saturday evening when we were closing up shop.  Our office manager didn't want to lay claim to the fruit and neither did my teaching co-worker.  So I ended up being the one who took the remaining akebi home.

While some people mentioned that they didn't quite like the bitter taste of akebi, the ones I had had no such taste at all.  If anything they were very mildly sweet.  The taste vaguely reminded me of lycees...but not quite as distinct.

Having consumed all the fruit, tonight I will go about cooking the fruit rind following the method described by our office manager.  I remember hearing in the past that people will stuff the rinds with meat and miso.  I'm not sure if they're baked, steamed, or broiled.

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I did check online to see if I could find some information about akebi.  I came upon a page on a site called kyotofoodie.com (http://kyotofoodie.com/japanese-fruit-akebi/) which suggested eating the fruit whole with the seeds.  The bitter taste comes from biting on the seeds.  Also, the ones mentioned on that site had purple skin.  Because their examples were cultivated, the pods don't split open naturally.