Sapote, White

With only a few acres planted in California and Florida, it may be a bit premature to discuss this silky, creamy, utterly confusing (in name only) fruit. But its market potential looks so promising that making a place for it on greengrocers’ shelves seems more a matter of time than of question.

The white sapote’s (sah-PO-tay) pale cream flesh is unusually soft, juicy, and light-textured, truly the consistency of fine flan—devoid of fiber or granules. It has a very sweet, mild flavor (sometimes downright bland) that may hint of peaches, lemons, mango, coconut, caramel, or vanilla, depending upon the variety. The size of an orange or grapefruit, its very thin skin may be bright green to canary yellow, and everything in between. The white sapote has 2–5 seeds that may be flat and chiplike or the size and shape of orange seeds (the fruit, like Citrus, is a member of the Rutaceae or Rue family). They are embedded at random (or so it appears to me) in the delicate custardy flesh of this apparently coreless fruit.