A kiwano melon is a fruit that's native to parts of southern Africa.
One of the things I enjoy doing most in life is sampling fruits I've never tried before. Over the course of my travels, I've been able to try a lot of exotic and interesting fruits, some of which are now my favorite fruits in the entire world such as durian, cempedak, and that bizarre egg yolk fruit that I tried in Thailand. Anyway, I just think that fruit is one of the most amazing things in the world - the reason being that different fruits, which are produced by trees, and so incredible - impossible to be recreated and cooked by a human, but just natural amazing flavors.
So while I've mostly tried fruits in Southeast Asia, I was actually in the United States, at a store in Phoenix, Arizona, when I walked into a supermarket and noticed a bright orange fruit. I looked at the label and saw that it was something known as a kiwano melon. At $3.99 per fruit, it was extremely expensive for just a single fruit, but when I see a new fruit that I've never tried before, there's no holding me back on my desire to try it, and I was willing to dish out a bit of cash in order to get a couple of these kiwano melons. When I got home, I did a bit of research to see what exactly the melon was, and discovered that it's also known as a horned melon, and that the fruit is native to parts of the southern part of Africa.
I tried to not read too much about the flavor of a kiwano melon, as I wanted to see for myself how it tasted before reading someone else's opinion. So with little research I decided to give this peculiar and beautiful orange thorny fruit a try. When I first sat down with the horned melon I really didn't know what to do so I first cut it in half. I was extremely impressed with the beautiful orange color from the outside and the contrast of the green seeds on the inside. I got out a spoon, and dug out my first bite of the kiwano melon. The seeds looked very similar to a cucumber, and they were coated in a gel, or a Jell-O like skin.
The seeds were very tough and quite hard to chew, but they did have a really good flavor to them. The melon sort of reminded me of cucumber with its freshness, but at the same time it had a flavor similar to a kiwifruit, but quite a bit less sweet. So after finishing about half of the key watermelon, I decided to research it a little bit more, and found out that it's a very healthy fruit. The fruit is packed with all sorts of vitamins and fiber, so it's not only an interesting fruit to try but also healthy fruit. I also read that if you want no melon is commonly used in things like fruit shakes and even cocktails, and some people mentioned that they take out the seeds.
Overall the kiwano melon was very interesting to try, and I did enjoy it, but it was a bit too expensive in the United States for me to eat it on a regular basis. It's a great fruit, but not really worth going out of your way to purchase all the time.
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