Strange and Unusual in the Frutta e Verdura

The past week has seen several new arrivals in our local fruit and vegetable store. The first thing looks kind of like a date which hasn't been dried out, or perhaps a shiny acorn or maybe like a reddish olive. As you can tell, it sort of defies description if you haven't seen it. Laura, the proprietress of the fruit store, offered us one to try when we questioned her about them. They have a cream colored flesh and a pit like either a date or an olive. The taste is sort of reminiscent of a date as well, but not quite as sweet. So what are they? It is called the gensolo fruit. It turns out they were brought into Italy by the Romans from the Orient and have happily been cultivated throughout Italy ever since. The scientific name is the zizyphus zizyphus (yup, you got that right). They are the original jujube! Legends abound around them including that they may have been used in Christ's crown of thorns since the branches of the tree they grow on are covered in thorns.

Next up isn't actually that unusual. It kind of looks like a spiky cross between cauliflower and broccoli. You can sometimes find them in the US and Amy has seen them before when visiting Italy. They are normally a fall crop so they are just starting to come in to the stores. This is the Cavolo Broccolo Romanesco or Roman Broccoli. We have procured one and acquired a recipe for preparing it, so the experiment is underway.

Last we have a reddish, brown thing that looks kind of like a tomato. We thought it was odd that it was placed with all of the fruit (yes, I do know that a tomato is actually a fruit). This was the cachi. It turns out they are just a variety of persimmon, unlike the bright orange ones we are accustomed to. They are apparently incredibly astringent if they aren't dead ripe so we will hold off until later in the season  before we try one. They are also good for the relief of constipation so we won't be dining to excess on them unless "the need" arises.