Zapotes Are in Season Now in Guatemala

Here’s your illustrated Guatemalan Spanish word of the day: Zapote for Sapote (from Nahuatl tzapotl) or Sapodilla in English [Pouteria sapota].

The zapote flavor is a mix of sweet potato, pumpkin, honey, peach, apricot, cantaloupe, cherry, and almond. The zapote fruit shown here is also known as sapote mamey in other parts of Latin America [Pouteria sapota]. Interesting enough, in Guatemala we also have another sapodilla fruit with the named mamey. So that means we have chico sapote, mamey, caimito and zapote, plus a few others fruits from sapodilla family.

Can you imagine how was the diet of Europeans before all the contributions of Meso-America to the world in terms of brand-new dietary crops; such as maize (corn), tomatoes, avocados, potatoes, squash, pumpkins, tomatillo, beans, red hot chili peppers [not the rock band ;-)], cashew plums and countless other tropical fruits.

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