I was looking forward to finding these in the Philippines. I actually discovered them last year while on a work trip to Laos. They look very similar to kiwis, mainly oblong and brown, but without the kiwi fuzz. You could mistake them for small potatoes as well. I bought them off a cart in Vientiane because they looked interesting, and without any guidance tried to figure out how to open them in my hotel room.
Without any expectations, I was elated at what I found. I tried eating it by laboriously peeling off the skin with a knife (you can eat them this way, but it's best to just slice in half and then eat with a spoon, I later discovered). The flesh is a bright to brownish orange. My first impression was that it tasted like caramel. Chicos are deeply, syrupy sweet. The texture is a little gritty, but when perfectly ripe, very soft. I saw it one place described as a pear soaked in brown sugar, and I thought this came pretty close to describing the taste.
In Laos, we couldn't find anyone who could translate the name for us, but upon searching I later found that they're called 'sapodillas' in English - they're native to latin America and made it to southeast Asia through colonial trade.
When we arrived in the Philippines, I was psyched to find that these were in peak season, with kilos available for about $1. They went out of season after about a month, and the ones you could get never reached that peak of ripeness or sweetness. Chicos that are unripe or past ripe have a horrible, spit-it-out astringent sticky taste that leaves your mouth feel dry and that require glasses of water to wash away. It's understandable why these don't make it to east coast US markets - the window on ripeness is only a couple of days.
This was probably Nicky's favorite fruit of all the ones we found in the Philippines - we often mixed them with yogurt for lunch, and he learned to request 'ki-koo's.
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