Are maypops tasty?
One
of Mom's friends gave her this unripe passionflower fruit, which she
then passed along to me. Since the maypop is edible and the vine
is often included in permaculture texts, I might see if the fruit had
gotten far enough along on the vine to produce viable seeds.
I'm always up for growing an experimental species, even though I have a
feeling that, if maypops tasted all that good, I would have eaten one
before since they're native to our region and since I grew up amid
foragers. In
the meantime, I'd be curious to hear from those of you who have grown
passionflowers in your garden. I know the blossoms are beautiful,
but is the fruit worth eating?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Just got this fascinating comment via email: "We used to cook the seeds with just a little water and then strain out the seeds to make passionfruit syrup to put in our iced tea (or it would be awesome in just about anything) when we lived in West Africa. I live in Montana now, so we don't grow them here.
The vines attract snakes unless well trellised (at least in Africa they did, but based on your snake adventures, I bet they would there, too), but the vines are wonderful shade-makers and flowers beautiful."
From this, and a comment on facebook, I'm suspecting that drinks are the primary purpose of passionflower fruits.
I tried maypops for many years, and they only managed to set fruit twice. The fruit was pretty bland. Not bad, but really not much there.
But actual passionfruits- I love 'em! I grow them in an earthbox and take them inside for winter, drastically pruning them. They semi-hibernate and then grow like mad in the spring. They will turn purple and drop from the vine when almost ripe, then just let them finish up on the kitchen counter. When the fruit gets just a little bit wrinkled, they should be ripe. Cut them in half, stir up the insides with a spoon and enjoy over shaved ice. Also goes well with yogurt, or use the half fruit as a cup- add some soda water or if you prefer, vodka.
Love maypops. infatuated with them. will it be a short term romance? I doubt it. Though i will say it is mainly lust at this time... Here is what I wrote: http://eumaeusandtheworm.wordpress.com/2014/09/07/my-first-maypop/
We have these growing on our farm. The flowers spread out across the field and are absolutely gorgeous. I follow your post and look forward to trying lots of your ideas when we build our house on the farm. I plan to grow these on trellises to shade in the summer because it dies back in the winter. The best way to get the seeds is after the fruit falls off the vine. Email me your address and I'll be glad to send you some later this fall. Jackie
Passionfruit is a cultural staple here in Australia! We traditionally grow them over the chookhouse, the dunny, the fence, or the shed roof. Pretty much any vertical structure will do :-).
You can't make a good pavlova without passionfruit! It's also used in "tropical" fruit juices and as a flavour in some softdrinks (in particular my childhood favourite, Passiona).
It sounds like maypops are a slightly different variety, but I've no idea how different the fruit is.