Today's article is about a fruit that was completely new to me--tejocote, which I came upon a few months ago while fruit shopping. The company that produced it was Frieda's out of California, in the U.S. But the fruit itself was, as the title suggests, grown in Mexico.
This fruit goes by many names. Tejocote reportedly comes from the Nahuatl word for "stone fruit," texicotl. Another common title, manzanita, means "little apple" in Spanish. Other names for it include tejocotera, Mexican hawthorn, and the first part of its scientific name, Crataegus. Tejocote is native to mountainous regions of Mexico, and parts of Guatemala. It's consumed in many ways--raw, canned, cooked, or juiced. One of the most popular ways is as the base for ponche, a hot fruit punch imbibed by Mexicans around Christmas and New Year's celebrations. For another holiday, the Day of the Dead, candied tejocotes are enjoyed, and other parts of its plant are used as decorations. The fruit's high pectin content provides another use, as this aspect is utilized by other industries, such as textiles, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. The hard wood of its plant is often made into tool handles, or burned as firewood. The leaves and fruit also serve as fodder for livestock. Finally, the fruit has several perceived medical benefits, to combat heart problems, coughing, and diarrhea. (I use the word "perceived" because to my knowledge these attributes haven't been scientifically proven.)
The fruit company Frieda's, not surprisingly, gets its moniker from its founder, Frieda Rapoport Caplan. Frieda was born in Los Angeles, California in 1923. In 1945 she graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor's in economics and political science. After working at a law office and nylon factory she married Alfred Hale Caplan, a labor relations consultant. In 1955 Frieda was looking for a job that would allow her to also breastfeed her newborn daughter. Some of her in-laws owned a produce company, Giumarra Brothers, and they hired her as a bookkeeper. While they went on vacation they left Frieda in charge of their stall at the Los Angeles Produce Market. Frieda noticed something significant--the selection of fruits and vegetables at this market, and country wide in general, was very limited. She saw a potential untapped market of acquiring and selling fruits and vegetables that were new and unusual to most people of the time. One of these was the portobella mushroom. Since she showed a flair at this, she decided to open her own company in 1962. Showing how sexist the times were, she had to have her dad cosign on her business loan, as women in that era couldn't get credit on their own.
Once she was fully in charge, Frieda continued her philosophy of importing and introducing new fruits and vegetables to the American public, with great success. She was so instrumental in popularizing kiwi fruit (which saw an increase in sales once New Zealand growers switched its name from the old "Chinese gooseberry") that she earned the honorific "Queen of Kiwi." She is also credited with coming up with the new common name for Jerusalem artichoke, going with "sunchoke." Additionally, Frieda was determined to help out women in the once male dominated field of selling produce. Thus, in the early 1970's she had an all-female sales team. But she took things further. Frieda's packaging and labeling was innovative--it was among the first, if not the first, to include information about the product inside, as well as storage tips and recipes. Both her financial success, and her business ideas gave Frieda a lot of fame, and respect. Cal Poly--San Luis Obispo awarded her with an honorary doctorate. She was even a guest on the David Letterman Show in 1995. There was even a documentary made about Frieda in 2015, with the title "Fear No Food." (IMDB has it with a very respectable 7.3 out of 10.0 rating.) Frieda is not still with us, as she died in 2020 at the age of 96. Her daughters Karen and Jackie now run the company, and are continuing her legacy of selling unusual fruits and vegetables. Two of the business's credos are "Embrace our inner weird," and "Normal is boring."
Frieda's tejocote: Their color was yellow-orange, with some black specks on them, and they were a roundish shape, about 3-5 cm. in diameter (about 1.25 to 2 inches). The rind was edible, like an apple. The inner pulp was yellow. The texture was a bit softer than an apple. Overall they reminded me of crab apples. Only with a weaker taste--crab apples have a nice tartness to them, and these were pretty bland. So disappointing overall. Maybe they taste better as a punch, but clearly I wasn't going to the trouble and time of doing all of that preparation.
Despite my disdain for this particular offering, I do definitely like Frieda's general philosophy. Partially in a selfish, mercenary way, as its practice of selling odd and unusual fruits and vegetables fits in perfectly with the theme of my culinary blog posts. So I won't be buying tejocotes again, but I will seek out and try other Frieda's foods when I get a chance. In fact, I already have gotten a second one--look for a post about it in the coming months. In closing, I also found it funny that Frieda's success in selling one of its flagship brands backfired. The company no longer markets kiwi fruit, as largely due to their efforts, it's no longer an exotic fruit for most Americans. Also, it was kind of ironic to read that Frieda Caplan never learned to cook, even though she conscientiously included recipes on many of her foods. "Do as I say, not as I do," I guess.
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