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Tamarillo

The Tamarillo (also known as the 'Tree Tomato' is, natively, a South American fruit that's used both as a fruit in sweet dishes and as a vegetable in savoury dishes, particularly in the preparation of stews. It is a shrubby tree that can grow up to 6m in height and which can tolerate fairly poor salts and is very productive when fruiting (a single bush can, over its six-month fruiting period) more than keep an ordinary family supplied with fruit.

Tamarillo tree and fruit

Tamarillo (also known as tree tomato, or tomate de árbol and Dutch eggplant) is the fruit of Solanum betaceum, a member of the Solanaceae (Deadly Nightshade) family of fowering plants (which also includes potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums and aubergines).

Solanum betaceum is a small tree or perennial shrub growing, maximally, to some 6m in height. The leaves are heart-shaped at the base and pointed at the apex and are muskily odorous. These are alternate and farily large (10-35cm long and 1-10cm wide) and grow along the length of the brown, woody, adult branches and stems of the plant.

The fragrant inflorescences of the plant are bourne in small, loose clusters near the branch tips during late summer or early autumn, typically 3-12 flowers in single inflorescences. Once fertilized these develop into the fruit (one per inflorescence) which are egg-shaped and can grow up to 8cm in lngth and 3cm in diameter and have yellow or red skins with a waxy, bitter, exocarp and may have faint dark longitudinal strips. The flesh is a pale orange, succulent and with a flavoure reminiscent of a blend of kiwifruit, tomato and/or passion fruit. The cross-section of the fruit looks vaguely like a tomato (hence the common name of tree tomato) and the skin is markedly bitter but sweetens upon cooking (typically the fless is scooped from the skin wiht a spoon prior to eating.

Solanum betaceum it is native of the Andes of Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia (though it is cultivated in cultivated in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia (where it is known as terong Belanda or 'Dutch eggplant'), Kenya, Portugal, the United States, New Zealand and Venezuela). In Portugal and New Zealand it is grown as a commercial crop. Recently there has been mention of this plant as a superfood in the UK press and is now available in the UK as both seed and mature plants (it requires two years' growth before fruiting). It is not hardy and thus is recommended to be grown in pots in Northern Climes so that it can be brought indoors over winter (but it will tolerate a temperature drop of down to 6°C over winter as long as the pot is kept farily dry).

I originally bought a plant to seek a replacement for the Bitter Tomto (a close relative) that my wife used in her native Liberian recipes. However, the tamarillo is much more versatile than this and can be used anywhere you would use bitter tomatoes, ordinary tomatoes or even plums in recipes. It makes excellent drinks, preserves catsups and desserts and you can see a whole range of recipes in my tamarillo recipe collection.


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