October 9, 2019 • 24 mins
Lilikoi, aka passion fruit, didn’t originate in Hawaii – but its bright flowers and tangy flavor have found a home there. We explore the storied history and tasty science of lilikoi.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Our second my tie of the day was at Merrimans
Thank you. Yes. And I had heard about this one
because our coworker, Alex, had been to Hawaii recently for
his honeymoon. And Alex is very um poetic with his
words and um he sent me up wonderful. I was like,
(00:30):
we're going to Hawaii, suggestions and he sent me a
beautifully worded list of suggestions and he it was so
like poetic and epic what he said about this my tie,
and specifically the foam on top of lily ki phone. Yeah,
Lily COI being passionate fuit. Yes. So I was very
excited to try this Alex had built up and I
(00:50):
gotta say it met the it met the hype. Oh yeah.
It was one of the prettiest drinks we had all week.
I'm in the phone really did did It added this
like layer of tartness that um that you don't always
I mean, you know, if you get a really good
punch of lime juice, it can do a similar thing.
But I think it was that that set off my
(01:11):
obsession with Lily Koi for the rest of the trip.
I was just like more passion fruit everything all the time.
I'm never going to be able to find this much
of it anywhere ever again, so please let me eat
it all now. Hello and welcome to save our protection
of IHR Radio and Stephieia. I'm Anny Rees and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're talking about lilla koi u
a k a passion fruit. Yes, which is exciting. We're
(01:35):
excited about this one. Oh, yes, so excited. It's like
my new favorite food. Yeah. I had not had much
experience with passion fruit before we went to Hawaii, but
while we were in Hawaii, it was everywhere which was glorious.
It was it was that that foam, that glorious foam
and from the top, oh my goodness. Um. But yeah,
(01:57):
we had this. We had Lita koi and sodas and
mal sada's, which are kind of donut, like a filled
donut yet so good can be filled anyway. Yes, we
had it in cocktails, and I feel like we had
it in other dessert forms. Yeah, it was in at
least two of the fancy dessert the Michelle Carruca served
(02:17):
us over at MW Restaurant in Honolulu. Yes, we did
eat a lot of food on this trip. If it
wasn't clear, but this passion fruit lili quoi is also popular,
and champs ice cream juice, butter wine, shave ice. Some
cultures believe that after taking a bite of passion fruit,
you will fall in love with the next person that
(02:38):
you see, or at the very least that's the Internet
lore about the thing. I was not able to confirm
a passion in the name, sure, and then that's all
it took. But yes, uh sauces, jellos, cocktails, passion fruit wine.
I went from having to ask one of our interviewees
(02:59):
like what the heck liloquois is in reference to that poem,
I do believe um to being like flat out obsessed
with it within two weeks. Um. I don't think I've
had any particularly exemplary interactions with passion fruit here on
the mainland, but um, you know, I'd like mostly seen
it as a as a syrup or maybe an ingredient
in a fruit punch situation, or as an artificial flavor.
(03:20):
And I didn't even have a good concept of like
what that flavor was supposed to be either, And that
brings us to our question passion fruit, what is it? Well,
passion fruit is the fruit of a flowering vine in
the passive Flora genus, and there are a lot of
(03:42):
distinct species within this genus, some five hundred of which
about sixty bear edible fruit, of which a handful are
widely cultivated. The vines have these big, glossy, three lobed
green leaves, and they grow real vigorously. They'll climb pretty
much as high as you let them, and can provide
a lot of cover. Some species are considered invasive in
(04:03):
some places in the world. The fruits are round to
oval and come in two main varieties. Purple skinned, which
are this like dark like gothy purple when they're ripe
and about the size of a golf ball, and yellow skinned,
which are lemon yellow and ripe and can reach the
size of a grapefruit. Both have this like thick like
leathery skin that encases many flat oval seeds, which are
(04:25):
each individually encased in a little like jelly like juice sec. Yeah,
like if you've ever cut open a pomegranate. Um, it's
sort of like that, except where the arrows or juice
secs of a pomegranate are firm and dry, the arrows
of passion fruit are soft and kind of slimy um.
The arrow's pulp can range in color from white to
deep gold to bright orange, and the seeds are brown
(04:47):
to black. Both are edible. The seeds are like toasty
flavored and crunchy, like popcorn um, or that's how I
find them anyway, And the pulp is just bright and
sweet heart and a little musky and floral and tropical. Uh,
sort of like a like a more complex version of
a of a pineapple or a more acidic version of guava.
If you're familiar with that um. You can strain the
(05:09):
seeds out if you want. The purple ones tend to
be a little bit sweeter and more frost tolerant, the
yellow ones more acidic and disease resistant. Which one you
like and want to grow is really really up to you.
I can't tell you what to do. Nope, that's not
what we're here for. Nope. Passion fruit is a native
to South America. Why do we call it passion fruit?
(05:31):
I'm so glad you asked. Catholic missionaries Gabolic missionaries from
Spain in the Brazilian Amazon and the sixteenth seventeenth century
gave it the name floor passions passion flower or Florida
sinco Yagas or Florida sinco Chagas flower of the five wounds. Okay, okay.
(05:54):
They thought that the purple flower looked like Jesus's five wounds,
the passion being the passion meaning suffering of the Christ,
the days leading up to his crucifixion, and to be fair,
I get, I get to be fair. Um. These flowers
do look wild like. They can come in a few colors.
The most common have these large petals that are that
(06:16):
are white on their tips and royal blue to purple
towards the center. And then the spray or corona of
long ten drils over top of the petals coming out
from the center and then coming up from that center,
there's this like tall structure with all of these anthers
and stigmas, you know, like the flowers actual reproductive bits.
Like these things look like like chi hilly sculptures. They're
(06:36):
super cool looking. Yeah, kind of blow my mind. And
like the name goes even more even beyond the passion.
The five spikes represent Christ's crown of florins, the tin
petals symbolic in the minds of these Catholic missionaries of
the tin faithful apostles, the three stigmata, the three nails,
the tendrils of the plant were reminiscent of whips, and
(07:00):
to the ovary and cup the Holy Grail. The missionaries
used all of this, all of this tied up in
the anglicized passion fruit, and you said, as part of
their efforts to convert the indigenous population to Christianity. Huh,
look at this fruit. It's all of this stuff that
we're trying to convince you is the way to be Well,
(07:22):
I mean, I'd never thought about why we call it
passion fruit. I just assumed it was like, right, it's
it's passionate. It's a bright flavor. Yeah, I don't know,
we like it passion. Yeah, I had never thought about
sixteenth century missionaries. Nope, me either. Well, here we are
(07:43):
food shows. Um. When passion fruits get ripe, they usually
dropped to the ground, and even commercial productions will usually
harvest them by collecting the fruit by hand from the ground. Um.
The skin of the fruit will go sort of like
dented or wrinkly after they drop, and that's when they're
the sweetest. Dented frinkly equals good. Yes, Chef Allen Wong,
(08:04):
who we did interview, but we did not ask him
about passion fruit. Silly us. Yeah, he told Honolulu Magazine.
Visitors always ask me what's the one thing they should
do before they leave Hawaii. I say, go hiking and
look for lili quoi, crack with your palms between your
knees and eat them. There's nothing else like it. That's
a great tip, that is. Yeah. And you and you
(08:25):
can split them open, yeah, with with your with your hands.
They get a little bit messy, they might squish out.
I think using a knife to open one is the
preferred cleaner method. But if you don't mind a little
bit of a mess, yeah, go for it. Go for it.
M What about the nutrition, Well, passion fruit is pretty
good for you. Lots of vitamin C and a smattering
(08:47):
of other micronutrients, tons of fiber, like even in the
strained juice, which is why the juice is so thick.
In the juicing industry, the seeds are often discarded as waste,
but they're now being investigated for being like pressed for
their oil as a potential value added by product um.
The seed oil is also pretty good for you, Lots
of like good fats and nutrients UM and apparently has
(09:09):
a slightly floral or fruity smell like the fruit, so
fun there um. The flowers and stems and leaves are
also consumed in a tea or tincture form, more as
an herbal medicine than is like snacks um as. They
have a slight sedative effect that has been researched as
an anti anxiety medication and sleep aid. UM. It's apparently
on the scale uh somewhat less effective than like valerian root,
(09:31):
but it does rank Yeah how interesting. UM. Extracts of
the peels are also being investigated for medicinal purposes. They
contain antioxidants and have been shown to have some like
anti inflammatory properties, which in small studies have helped folks
control asthma and blood pressure. UM and extracts of the
fruit have been found to have decent antimicrobial properties in
(09:54):
the mouth when taken orally after dentistry UM and a
more pleasant taste than herbal remedies for use in a
developing countries. Oh nice, Yeah, well, we do have some
numbers for you, we do. Um. Though native to the
America's passion fruit and passion flowers are grown all over
(10:15):
the world and China run India, Southeast Asia, Australia, in
the whole dayg rest of Oceania, throughout tropical and subtropical
parts of Africa, and in Spain, Portugal and Belgium. UM. Brazil, though,
is the largest producer of the fruit. Over fifty percent
of the world's production happens there, and I've seen numbers
up to um but most of that stays in Brazil.
(10:39):
Um Markets for both the fruit and extracts for personal
care products are growing and a supply is currently struggling
to meet demand. We just missed the second annual Mauie
literally Ki festival. It was on September, put on by
an Apuli farmers Market. Maybe next year, Maybe next year.
(11:00):
I have so many things to return for let's you know,
let's just that's a good problem to have. Oh yes, yes, Anyway,
until then, in this very episode, we're going to dig
into the history of aliquois. But first we're going to
take a quick break for word from our sponsor, and
(11:28):
we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. So we
humans not like me and Anny, have known that purple
varieties of passion fruit originated in subtropical parts of South America,
like round about modern day Brazil. Uh. No, one's sure
entirely how the yellow variety developed as a hybrid as
(11:49):
a mutation mysteries of history, oh my gosh. But it
seems in any case that native peoples have been collecting
and cultivating passion fruit and passion flowers as food and
medicine for like a couple of thousand years throughout the Americas,
like like from South America all the way up through
as far north as the modern day U. S State
(12:09):
of Virginia. Um. But unlike some other crops that like
immediately went abroad after contact, passion fruit doesn't seem to
have made it out of the America's for a really
long time. Um. Maybe because it's like so highly perishable
and really stubbornly tropical or subtropical. But yeah, Uh. Colonists
and traders did introduce seeds of the purple type to
(12:30):
Australia in the early eighteen hundreds, and then from Australia
to Hawaii in eighteen eighty, where it became a popular
home garden plant. The story goes that when passion fruit
first arrived in Hawaii, it was planted in the Lilliquois
District of Maui and the name stuck. The purple variety
was uh introduced or perhaps reintroduced by white settlers into
(12:53):
the South and central mainland United States in eighteen eighties seven,
and then to India and parts of a in Asia
in the early nineteen hundreds, into a few gardens in Europe.
Um And meanwhile it was spreading the purple type like
whoe in Hawaii. UM. By the nineteen thirties, wild lilliquoi
could be found on all of the Hawaiian islands. Yes,
(13:16):
uh and though the yellow passion fruit arrived a bit
later than the purple variety to Hawaii, UM, it really
took off there in the University of Hawaii picked lilliquoi
as one of the most promising crops. At the time
they were only about five acres. Seven years later, twelve
acres of primarily yellow passion fruit were up and running.
(13:40):
The industry was there to stay. The focus then was
on quick frozen lilliquoit juice. Earlier in the nineteen forties,
someone that history knows only as Mr. Hayley tried to
market and sell canned passion fruit juice, but he was
ultimately unsuccessful and closed up shop after World War Two.
In the nineteen fifties, one Knoll Fujimoto selected yellow passion
(14:03):
fruit cultivars until he arrived at the Knowles Special Variety,
which I just I love that name. Special really shot
the kernel on that one. But these were hardier and
produced more sellable fruit than any other existing cultivar. Along
the same lines, two hybrids of purple and yellow passion
fruit developed at a research center in Queensland, Australia had
(14:24):
a higher yield and fruit bearing window a longer fruit
bearing window than their purple passion fruit predecessor, and these
were widely adopted in Queensland and New South Wales. Going
back a little bit um and back to South America,
the yellow passion fruit started to gain more traction in
the nineteen fifties. Venezuela fell in love with it in
nineteen fifty four ish and began trying to improve the
(14:47):
yield for products like passion fruit ice cream, juice and uh,
this passion fruit rum cocktail that came into bottle. I
think it's canned now anyway. Going back to North America,
when Julia Morton of Florida requested seeds of good strains
for both purple and yellow passion fruits from the Queensland
Department of Agriculture and Stock. Yes, she received them um
(15:07):
and once received Morton then gave them to people willing
to experiment. Um. A yellow vine flourished in Pine Crest, Florida,
and birds carried seeds that later fruited to the nearby
ish Everglades. She found reports of passion fruit growing in
coconut grove and land lakes, also in Florida. If you're unfamiliar,
I've been to those places. I know. I had to
look up all these places like that makes sense. They're
(15:29):
all in this kind of Yeah, they're all basically in
the same area. Um and uh. And some vendors in
those areas started selling the seeds as well. Around the
same time, San Diego boasted small purple passion fruit plantations
that they would turn into both um fresh produce and
into juice. However, Yeah, it just wasn't really very popular
(15:50):
in the mainland. United States. Two officials for the United
States Agricultural Department authored two reports on the problems of
pollination of the yellow variety. Problems in their mind, that
would make juice extraction from the fruit. Um. Yeah, the
yellow kind is is a little bit pickier. In a
lot of cases, you have to cross pollinated with something else,
and so yeah, it's got a little bit more going on. Um.
(16:15):
So these these officials put out a call saying, anyone
or any entity that wants to experiment with passion fruit
to improve yield and disease resistance, we have samples available
for you. Minute made yes that one answered the call
in they had a test colony of yellow passion fruit,
(16:36):
but two years later they threw in the towel reasoning quote.
The yields are not as large as in more tropical
areas where the plant remains productive all year round. Our
plants went out of production during the winter season. During
the windy spring months of March and April, the vines
are badly damaged and no flowers are set until sometime
in May. We also found that the passion fruit were
(16:58):
expensive to harvest. The fruits to fall on the ground
and sometimes it gets hung up in the vines. There
is a continual collection of small quantities of fruit throughout
the bearing year. Special equipment is needed to obtain the
juice from the fruit without bits of the calics showing
up as objectionable. Black specs. This equipment is costly. It
can only be justified when a large all email fruit
(17:20):
is being processed. I like your dramatic reading of that.
I'm not sure if they were quite as I mean,
maybe they weren't that frustrated. Maybe they were like, dang it,
dang everything about this heck and thing. I like to
imagine that people bring the drama to what seemed to
be relatively boring. Is not boring to me. But you know,
(17:44):
dry ish perhaps, yes, as dry as the fruit of
the vines. Exactly, Lauren. Meanwhile, nest Lee's r Indeed apartment.
Yes that Nestlee UM also got in on passion fruit research.
In five um they was passion fruit as one of
the European markets three insufficiently known subtropical fruits with the
(18:06):
greatest potential for processing for juice. Insufficiently known. Yeah, I
hope that's what would come up if somebody was like
trying to look me up at a computer, like an
FBI agent and a Reese insufficiently known and it's a
picture of me looking over my shoulder with my eyes narrow, squinty. Yeah, yeah,
you know, in the nineties, as part of a series
(18:29):
of children's books. We're telling European fairy tales in Hawaii.
Jack and the bean stock was reimagined as kika and
the litliquoi vine. Oh well, indeed, um, we do have
some more for you. That about wraps up our history portion.
It does. But yes, we will be back with more
about local produce in Hawaii after we get back from
(18:50):
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor.
We're back, Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So all
of this got me to thinking why did lili quoi
take off in Hawaii and not in the mainland US
(19:12):
Other than the history, the taste, the climate, and all
the other stuff that we just went over. Well, sure,
but it could have hypothetically been grown more extensively in
Florida or California. Um. And you know, certainly in those places, Uh,
people didn't come up with a with a local name
for it and embrace it in the way that it's
been embraced. Yeah. Right, And and a part of it
(19:33):
is that that wanting to eat local, that wanted to
support Hawaiian farmers and producers, and tourism actually plays a
role as well. Hawaii has such a wealth of produce
and since it is a tourist destination. There is an
expectation among tourists to experience the foods and drinks that
they associate with Hawaii, including passion food and things made
(19:57):
with passion food. Here's Sean Joe Lamb Luca Yellow, the
director of Mythology and Spirits Education with Southern Glazers, Wine
and Spirits of Hawaii. We we do have some really
respectable craft bars here, but for the most part, people
that are visiting from you know, Atlanta or Chicago or Michigan,
(20:18):
they don't want like a Sasarak. They want my Tide.
They want to feel like they're on vacation. They want
to taste of labors of white. They want passion fruit
and guava and you know, locally made spirits. She also
spoke about the creativity that trying to buy local and
(20:38):
seasonal fosters when it comes to designing menus and um
and just experimented with what's available. The produce is great
to use, but it is very seasonal, so then you
just change your menu with the different seasons, which is
fun too, because then we have light che season that's
here now, mango season is right about to erupt, and
all the trees are just like just full to the
(20:59):
brim because we've had a lot of rain before the season,
which is great, uh, but it is kind of hard
to source and if you can't really get it locally,
it's maybe not the best to use. So then you
just wait for the season and and then you work
with what you have. Why is his dedication to supporting
local producers goes deeper back to that responsibility our interviewees
(21:21):
talked about in our first episode of this mini series,
because it also ties into sustainability. As an island, Hawaii's
concerns around sustainability are a bit different than those of
the mainland. When you're at least two thousand miles away
from anything, everything you ship is going to be expensive
and it's going to hurt the economy in the long
term because by outsourcing products, you're also outsourcing jobs. And
(21:44):
sustainability is is a buzz word right now, but it
is not new at all in Hawaii. Um uh Kiloha
Domingo touched on this. He's a He's a Hawaiian cultural
practitioner who teaches people about Hawaii's native cultures through, among
other things, cooking local first has been a strong model
for you know, I want to say, going fifteen years now,
(22:08):
although there are so many times when it's so much
easier U to go step into Costco, you know, and
it's right there at your fingertips. But when you understand
and you appreciate and you get to know that farmer
that grew that produce, when you get to know that
farmer that he put his his good energy, his money
into the soil, into the implements, into everything from from
(22:32):
seed from July which is the planting media for our
tarot plant um. You know, when you put that Julie
in the ground, it's you know, it's a part of you.
And that that sustainability just flows, It comes naturally. And
I think the more the more people understand that, the
less likely we are to go to Costco. We're going
(22:56):
to have a whole episode around sustainability soon, yes, we promise, yes,
But in the meantime, we would love to hear from
you listeners. You can contact us via email at hello
at saber pod dot com. You can also find us
on social media. We are at saver Pod on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook. We do hope to hear from you. Thank
(23:18):
you so much to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard are Executive producer, Christopher Hasiotis and our interviewees,
and also Michelle McGowan, Rice of the Hawaii Food and
Wine Festival, Don Sakamotapaiva of Put It on My Plate,
and Joy Goto and Maria Hartfield of the Hawaii Visitors
Center and Convention Bureau for putting us in touch with
those interviewees. Sabor Is production of iHeart Radio and Stuff Media.
(23:42):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thank you for our special recording
assistance today from j J. Paseway. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Our second my tie of the day was at Merrimans
Thank you. Yes. And I had heard about this one
because our coworker, Alex, had been to Hawaii recently for
his honeymoon. And Alex is very um poetic with his
words and um he sent me up wonderful. I was like,
(00:30):
we're going to Hawaii, suggestions and he sent me a
beautifully worded list of suggestions and he it was so
like poetic and epic what he said about this my tie,
and specifically the foam on top of lily ki phone. Yeah,
Lily COI being passionate fuit. Yes. So I was very
excited to try this Alex had built up and I
(00:50):
gotta say it met the it met the hype. Oh yeah.
It was one of the prettiest drinks we had all week.
I'm in the phone really did did It added this
like layer of tartness that um that you don't always
I mean, you know, if you get a really good
punch of lime juice, it can do a similar thing.
But I think it was that that set off my
(01:11):
obsession with Lily Koi for the rest of the trip.
I was just like more passion fruit everything all the time.
I'm never going to be able to find this much
of it anywhere ever again, so please let me eat
it all now. Hello and welcome to save our protection
of IHR Radio and Stephieia. I'm Anny Rees and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're talking about lilla koi u
a k a passion fruit. Yes, which is exciting. We're
(01:35):
excited about this one. Oh, yes, so excited. It's like
my new favorite food. Yeah. I had not had much
experience with passion fruit before we went to Hawaii, but
while we were in Hawaii, it was everywhere which was glorious.
It was it was that that foam, that glorious foam
and from the top, oh my goodness. Um. But yeah,
(01:57):
we had this. We had Lita koi and sodas and
mal sada's, which are kind of donut, like a filled
donut yet so good can be filled anyway. Yes, we
had it in cocktails, and I feel like we had
it in other dessert forms. Yeah, it was in at
least two of the fancy dessert the Michelle Carruca served
(02:17):
us over at MW Restaurant in Honolulu. Yes, we did
eat a lot of food on this trip. If it
wasn't clear, but this passion fruit lili quoi is also popular,
and champs ice cream juice, butter wine, shave ice. Some
cultures believe that after taking a bite of passion fruit,
you will fall in love with the next person that
(02:38):
you see, or at the very least that's the Internet
lore about the thing. I was not able to confirm
a passion in the name, sure, and then that's all
it took. But yes, uh sauces, jellos, cocktails, passion fruit wine.
I went from having to ask one of our interviewees
(02:59):
like what the heck liloquois is in reference to that poem,
I do believe um to being like flat out obsessed
with it within two weeks. Um. I don't think I've
had any particularly exemplary interactions with passion fruit here on
the mainland, but um, you know, I'd like mostly seen
it as a as a syrup or maybe an ingredient
in a fruit punch situation, or as an artificial flavor.
(03:20):
And I didn't even have a good concept of like
what that flavor was supposed to be either, And that
brings us to our question passion fruit, what is it? Well,
passion fruit is the fruit of a flowering vine in
the passive Flora genus, and there are a lot of
(03:42):
distinct species within this genus, some five hundred of which
about sixty bear edible fruit, of which a handful are
widely cultivated. The vines have these big, glossy, three lobed
green leaves, and they grow real vigorously. They'll climb pretty
much as high as you let them, and can provide
a lot of cover. Some species are considered invasive in
(04:03):
some places in the world. The fruits are round to
oval and come in two main varieties. Purple skinned, which
are this like dark like gothy purple when they're ripe
and about the size of a golf ball, and yellow skinned,
which are lemon yellow and ripe and can reach the
size of a grapefruit. Both have this like thick like
leathery skin that encases many flat oval seeds, which are
(04:25):
each individually encased in a little like jelly like juice sec. Yeah,
like if you've ever cut open a pomegranate. Um, it's
sort of like that, except where the arrows or juice
secs of a pomegranate are firm and dry, the arrows
of passion fruit are soft and kind of slimy um.
The arrow's pulp can range in color from white to
deep gold to bright orange, and the seeds are brown
(04:47):
to black. Both are edible. The seeds are like toasty
flavored and crunchy, like popcorn um, or that's how I
find them anyway, And the pulp is just bright and
sweet heart and a little musky and floral and tropical. Uh,
sort of like a like a more complex version of
a of a pineapple or a more acidic version of guava.
If you're familiar with that um. You can strain the
(05:09):
seeds out if you want. The purple ones tend to
be a little bit sweeter and more frost tolerant, the
yellow ones more acidic and disease resistant. Which one you
like and want to grow is really really up to you.
I can't tell you what to do. Nope, that's not
what we're here for. Nope. Passion fruit is a native
to South America. Why do we call it passion fruit?
(05:31):
I'm so glad you asked. Catholic missionaries Gabolic missionaries from
Spain in the Brazilian Amazon and the sixteenth seventeenth century
gave it the name floor passions passion flower or Florida
sinco Yagas or Florida sinco Chagas flower of the five wounds. Okay, okay.
(05:54):
They thought that the purple flower looked like Jesus's five wounds,
the passion being the passion meaning suffering of the Christ,
the days leading up to his crucifixion, and to be fair,
I get, I get to be fair. Um. These flowers
do look wild like. They can come in a few colors.
The most common have these large petals that are that
(06:16):
are white on their tips and royal blue to purple
towards the center. And then the spray or corona of
long ten drils over top of the petals coming out
from the center and then coming up from that center,
there's this like tall structure with all of these anthers
and stigmas, you know, like the flowers actual reproductive bits.
Like these things look like like chi hilly sculptures. They're
(06:36):
super cool looking. Yeah, kind of blow my mind. And
like the name goes even more even beyond the passion.
The five spikes represent Christ's crown of florins, the tin
petals symbolic in the minds of these Catholic missionaries of
the tin faithful apostles, the three stigmata, the three nails,
the tendrils of the plant were reminiscent of whips, and
(07:00):
to the ovary and cup the Holy Grail. The missionaries
used all of this, all of this tied up in
the anglicized passion fruit, and you said, as part of
their efforts to convert the indigenous population to Christianity. Huh,
look at this fruit. It's all of this stuff that
we're trying to convince you is the way to be Well,
(07:22):
I mean, I'd never thought about why we call it
passion fruit. I just assumed it was like, right, it's
it's passionate. It's a bright flavor. Yeah, I don't know,
we like it passion. Yeah, I had never thought about
sixteenth century missionaries. Nope, me either. Well, here we are
(07:43):
food shows. Um. When passion fruits get ripe, they usually
dropped to the ground, and even commercial productions will usually
harvest them by collecting the fruit by hand from the ground. Um.
The skin of the fruit will go sort of like
dented or wrinkly after they drop, and that's when they're
the sweetest. Dented frinkly equals good. Yes, Chef Allen Wong,
(08:04):
who we did interview, but we did not ask him
about passion fruit. Silly us. Yeah, he told Honolulu Magazine.
Visitors always ask me what's the one thing they should
do before they leave Hawaii. I say, go hiking and
look for lili quoi, crack with your palms between your
knees and eat them. There's nothing else like it. That's
a great tip, that is. Yeah. And you and you
(08:25):
can split them open, yeah, with with your with your hands.
They get a little bit messy, they might squish out.
I think using a knife to open one is the
preferred cleaner method. But if you don't mind a little
bit of a mess, yeah, go for it. Go for it.
M What about the nutrition, Well, passion fruit is pretty
good for you. Lots of vitamin C and a smattering
(08:47):
of other micronutrients, tons of fiber, like even in the
strained juice, which is why the juice is so thick.
In the juicing industry, the seeds are often discarded as waste,
but they're now being investigated for being like pressed for
their oil as a potential value added by product um.
The seed oil is also pretty good for you, Lots
of like good fats and nutrients UM and apparently has
(09:09):
a slightly floral or fruity smell like the fruit, so
fun there um. The flowers and stems and leaves are
also consumed in a tea or tincture form, more as
an herbal medicine than is like snacks um as. They
have a slight sedative effect that has been researched as
an anti anxiety medication and sleep aid. UM. It's apparently
on the scale uh somewhat less effective than like valerian root,
(09:31):
but it does rank Yeah how interesting. UM. Extracts of
the peels are also being investigated for medicinal purposes. They
contain antioxidants and have been shown to have some like
anti inflammatory properties, which in small studies have helped folks
control asthma and blood pressure. UM and extracts of the
fruit have been found to have decent antimicrobial properties in
(09:54):
the mouth when taken orally after dentistry UM and a
more pleasant taste than herbal remedies for use in a
developing countries. Oh nice, Yeah, well, we do have some
numbers for you, we do. Um. Though native to the
America's passion fruit and passion flowers are grown all over
(10:15):
the world and China run India, Southeast Asia, Australia, in
the whole dayg rest of Oceania, throughout tropical and subtropical
parts of Africa, and in Spain, Portugal and Belgium. UM. Brazil, though,
is the largest producer of the fruit. Over fifty percent
of the world's production happens there, and I've seen numbers
up to um but most of that stays in Brazil.
(10:39):
Um Markets for both the fruit and extracts for personal
care products are growing and a supply is currently struggling
to meet demand. We just missed the second annual Mauie
literally Ki festival. It was on September, put on by
an Apuli farmers Market. Maybe next year, Maybe next year.
(11:00):
I have so many things to return for let's you know,
let's just that's a good problem to have. Oh yes, yes, Anyway,
until then, in this very episode, we're going to dig
into the history of aliquois. But first we're going to
take a quick break for word from our sponsor, and
(11:28):
we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. So we
humans not like me and Anny, have known that purple
varieties of passion fruit originated in subtropical parts of South America,
like round about modern day Brazil. Uh. No, one's sure
entirely how the yellow variety developed as a hybrid as
(11:49):
a mutation mysteries of history, oh my gosh. But it
seems in any case that native peoples have been collecting
and cultivating passion fruit and passion flowers as food and
medicine for like a couple of thousand years throughout the Americas,
like like from South America all the way up through
as far north as the modern day U. S State
(12:09):
of Virginia. Um. But unlike some other crops that like
immediately went abroad after contact, passion fruit doesn't seem to
have made it out of the America's for a really
long time. Um. Maybe because it's like so highly perishable
and really stubbornly tropical or subtropical. But yeah, Uh. Colonists
and traders did introduce seeds of the purple type to
(12:30):
Australia in the early eighteen hundreds, and then from Australia
to Hawaii in eighteen eighty, where it became a popular
home garden plant. The story goes that when passion fruit
first arrived in Hawaii, it was planted in the Lilliquois
District of Maui and the name stuck. The purple variety
was uh introduced or perhaps reintroduced by white settlers into
(12:53):
the South and central mainland United States in eighteen eighties seven,
and then to India and parts of a in Asia
in the early nineteen hundreds, into a few gardens in Europe.
Um And meanwhile it was spreading the purple type like
whoe in Hawaii. UM. By the nineteen thirties, wild lilliquoi
could be found on all of the Hawaiian islands. Yes,
(13:16):
uh and though the yellow passion fruit arrived a bit
later than the purple variety to Hawaii, UM, it really
took off there in the University of Hawaii picked lilliquoi
as one of the most promising crops. At the time
they were only about five acres. Seven years later, twelve
acres of primarily yellow passion fruit were up and running.
(13:40):
The industry was there to stay. The focus then was
on quick frozen lilliquoit juice. Earlier in the nineteen forties,
someone that history knows only as Mr. Hayley tried to
market and sell canned passion fruit juice, but he was
ultimately unsuccessful and closed up shop after World War Two.
In the nineteen fifties, one Knoll Fujimoto selected yellow passion
(14:03):
fruit cultivars until he arrived at the Knowles Special Variety,
which I just I love that name. Special really shot
the kernel on that one. But these were hardier and
produced more sellable fruit than any other existing cultivar. Along
the same lines, two hybrids of purple and yellow passion
fruit developed at a research center in Queensland, Australia had
(14:24):
a higher yield and fruit bearing window a longer fruit
bearing window than their purple passion fruit predecessor, and these
were widely adopted in Queensland and New South Wales. Going
back a little bit um and back to South America,
the yellow passion fruit started to gain more traction in
the nineteen fifties. Venezuela fell in love with it in
nineteen fifty four ish and began trying to improve the
(14:47):
yield for products like passion fruit ice cream, juice and uh,
this passion fruit rum cocktail that came into bottle. I
think it's canned now anyway. Going back to North America,
when Julia Morton of Florida requested seeds of good strains
for both purple and yellow passion fruits from the Queensland
Department of Agriculture and Stock. Yes, she received them um
(15:07):
and once received Morton then gave them to people willing
to experiment. Um. A yellow vine flourished in Pine Crest, Florida,
and birds carried seeds that later fruited to the nearby
ish Everglades. She found reports of passion fruit growing in
coconut grove and land lakes, also in Florida. If you're unfamiliar,
I've been to those places. I know. I had to
look up all these places like that makes sense. They're
(15:29):
all in this kind of Yeah, they're all basically in
the same area. Um and uh. And some vendors in
those areas started selling the seeds as well. Around the
same time, San Diego boasted small purple passion fruit plantations
that they would turn into both um fresh produce and
into juice. However, Yeah, it just wasn't really very popular
(15:50):
in the mainland. United States. Two officials for the United
States Agricultural Department authored two reports on the problems of
pollination of the yellow variety. Problems in their mind, that
would make juice extraction from the fruit. Um. Yeah, the
yellow kind is is a little bit pickier. In a
lot of cases, you have to cross pollinated with something else,
and so yeah, it's got a little bit more going on. Um.
(16:15):
So these these officials put out a call saying, anyone
or any entity that wants to experiment with passion fruit
to improve yield and disease resistance, we have samples available
for you. Minute made yes that one answered the call
in they had a test colony of yellow passion fruit,
(16:36):
but two years later they threw in the towel reasoning quote.
The yields are not as large as in more tropical
areas where the plant remains productive all year round. Our
plants went out of production during the winter season. During
the windy spring months of March and April, the vines
are badly damaged and no flowers are set until sometime
in May. We also found that the passion fruit were
(16:58):
expensive to harvest. The fruits to fall on the ground
and sometimes it gets hung up in the vines. There
is a continual collection of small quantities of fruit throughout
the bearing year. Special equipment is needed to obtain the
juice from the fruit without bits of the calics showing
up as objectionable. Black specs. This equipment is costly. It
can only be justified when a large all email fruit
(17:20):
is being processed. I like your dramatic reading of that.
I'm not sure if they were quite as I mean,
maybe they weren't that frustrated. Maybe they were like, dang it,
dang everything about this heck and thing. I like to
imagine that people bring the drama to what seemed to
be relatively boring. Is not boring to me. But you know,
(17:44):
dry ish perhaps, yes, as dry as the fruit of
the vines. Exactly, Lauren. Meanwhile, nest Lee's r Indeed apartment.
Yes that Nestlee UM also got in on passion fruit research.
In five um they was passion fruit as one of
the European markets three insufficiently known subtropical fruits with the
(18:06):
greatest potential for processing for juice. Insufficiently known. Yeah, I
hope that's what would come up if somebody was like
trying to look me up at a computer, like an
FBI agent and a Reese insufficiently known and it's a
picture of me looking over my shoulder with my eyes narrow, squinty. Yeah, yeah,
you know, in the nineties, as part of a series
(18:29):
of children's books. We're telling European fairy tales in Hawaii.
Jack and the bean stock was reimagined as kika and
the litliquoi vine. Oh well, indeed, um, we do have
some more for you. That about wraps up our history portion.
It does. But yes, we will be back with more
about local produce in Hawaii after we get back from
(18:50):
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor.
We're back, Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So all
of this got me to thinking why did lili quoi
take off in Hawaii and not in the mainland US
(19:12):
Other than the history, the taste, the climate, and all
the other stuff that we just went over. Well, sure,
but it could have hypothetically been grown more extensively in
Florida or California. Um. And you know, certainly in those places, Uh,
people didn't come up with a with a local name
for it and embrace it in the way that it's
been embraced. Yeah. Right, And and a part of it
(19:33):
is that that wanting to eat local, that wanted to
support Hawaiian farmers and producers, and tourism actually plays a
role as well. Hawaii has such a wealth of produce
and since it is a tourist destination. There is an
expectation among tourists to experience the foods and drinks that
they associate with Hawaii, including passion food and things made
(19:57):
with passion food. Here's Sean Joe Lamb Luca Yellow, the
director of Mythology and Spirits Education with Southern Glazers, Wine
and Spirits of Hawaii. We we do have some really
respectable craft bars here, but for the most part, people
that are visiting from you know, Atlanta or Chicago or Michigan,
(20:18):
they don't want like a Sasarak. They want my Tide.
They want to feel like they're on vacation. They want
to taste of labors of white. They want passion fruit
and guava and you know, locally made spirits. She also
spoke about the creativity that trying to buy local and
(20:38):
seasonal fosters when it comes to designing menus and um
and just experimented with what's available. The produce is great
to use, but it is very seasonal, so then you
just change your menu with the different seasons, which is
fun too, because then we have light che season that's
here now, mango season is right about to erupt, and
all the trees are just like just full to the
(20:59):
brim because we've had a lot of rain before the season,
which is great, uh, but it is kind of hard
to source and if you can't really get it locally,
it's maybe not the best to use. So then you
just wait for the season and and then you work
with what you have. Why is his dedication to supporting
local producers goes deeper back to that responsibility our interviewees
(21:21):
talked about in our first episode of this mini series,
because it also ties into sustainability. As an island, Hawaii's
concerns around sustainability are a bit different than those of
the mainland. When you're at least two thousand miles away
from anything, everything you ship is going to be expensive
and it's going to hurt the economy in the long
term because by outsourcing products, you're also outsourcing jobs. And
(21:44):
sustainability is is a buzz word right now, but it
is not new at all in Hawaii. Um uh Kiloha
Domingo touched on this. He's a He's a Hawaiian cultural
practitioner who teaches people about Hawaii's native cultures through, among
other things, cooking local first has been a strong model
for you know, I want to say, going fifteen years now,
(22:08):
although there are so many times when it's so much
easier U to go step into Costco, you know, and
it's right there at your fingertips. But when you understand
and you appreciate and you get to know that farmer
that grew that produce, when you get to know that
farmer that he put his his good energy, his money
into the soil, into the implements, into everything from from
(22:32):
seed from July which is the planting media for our
tarot plant um. You know, when you put that Julie
in the ground, it's you know, it's a part of you.
And that that sustainability just flows, It comes naturally. And
I think the more the more people understand that, the
less likely we are to go to Costco. We're going
(22:56):
to have a whole episode around sustainability soon, yes, we promise, yes,
But in the meantime, we would love to hear from
you listeners. You can contact us via email at hello
at saber pod dot com. You can also find us
on social media. We are at saver Pod on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook. We do hope to hear from you. Thank
(23:18):
you so much to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard are Executive producer, Christopher Hasiotis and our interviewees,
and also Michelle McGowan, Rice of the Hawaii Food and
Wine Festival, Don Sakamotapaiva of Put It on My Plate,
and Joy Goto and Maria Hartfield of the Hawaii Visitors
Center and Convention Bureau for putting us in touch with
those interviewees. Sabor Is production of iHeart Radio and Stuff Media.
(23:42):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thank you for our special recording
assistance today from j J. Paseway. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.