Fruit is one of the best food groups. It’s sweet, healthy, can be eaten raw or baked into delicious desserts or even made into jam. There are so many different varieties and each season brings new fruits to enjoy. But, there are many strange fruits that are unique to only certain areas of the world, meaning you may have never heard or seen of them before. Here are six unique fruits from around the world.

 

Rambutan

The rambutan grows on a medium-sized tropical tree, also called a rambutan, and is native to Malay-Indonesian region and other regions of tropical southeast Asia. The fruit is a single-seeded berry with a white flesh around the seed. The flesh is the edible part, with a pleasantly sweet flavor.

 

Asian pear

The Asian pear has many names: Chinese pear, Korean pear, Japanese pear, Taiwanese pear, and sand pear. Regardless of the name, the fruit has a crisp, grainy texture and a high water content, making them much juicier than the European varieties. The fruit can be eaten raw but is also used as a sweetener in many sauces and marinades, like Korean BBQ marinade.

 

Cherimoya

Appropriately known as a custard apple, the cherimoya is filled with a soft, custard-like white flesh. Native to South America, the outside of this fruit is similar in appearance to an artichoke, and it tastes like a combination of pineapple, strawberry, pear, and banana. Mark Twain once described it as “the most delicious fruit known to man.”

 

Durian

Nicknamed “the King of fruits,” durian is infamous for its pungent aroma and savory taste. The odor has been described as a combination of rotting food and body odor. In some Asian countries, it’s been banned from public transportation because of the stench. The flavor is hard to pinpoint, though it has been described as a mix between custard, caramel and blue cheese. Though the stench can be off-putting, there are those who love the fruit.

 

Loquat

The loquat is a small, pear-shaped orange fruit. It tastes like a combination of mango, citrus and peach. It grows on a large evergreen shrub, and can also be cultivated as an ornamental plant. The plant is native to the cooler hills region of China to south-central China.

 

Synsepalum Dulcificum

You only notice the strange properties of this Western African fruit if you eat something else afterward. Commonly known as the miracle fruit, it contains a glycoprotein that binds to your tongue to interrupt the normal operation of your taste buds. The fruit itself tastes similar to a cranberry, but after eating it any sour food will taste sugar-sweet.