Wood apple
Limonia acidissima, Rutaceae, the citrus family
The wood apple is “native and common in the wild in dry plains of India and Ceylon”, and is also grown in northern Malaya and on Penang. In India it was “a poor man’s food” until processing began in the 1950s2. Its old botanical name, Feronia elephantum, still turns up in dictionaries3.
“The rind must be cracked with a hammer”2. Inside is a sticky brown pulp, eaten raw with or without sugar, blended with coconut milk and palm sugar as a drink, frozen as ice cream, or made into chutney, jelly and jam; the jelly is purple and “much like that made from black currants”2.
The names are a tangle. Morton lists elephant apple, monkey fruit, curd fruit and kath bel for this species2; the elephant apple of this guide is a different tree altogether; and the bael, Aegle marmelos, is also called wood apple, stone apple and golden apple4.
Sources
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy: Limonia acidissima, Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Supports: the accepted name and family.
- Wood-Apple, in Fruits of Warm Climates, Julia F. Morton, 1987, Purdue University NewCROP. Supports: the range, the other names, the shell, and the uses of the pulp.
- Limonia acidissima, Useful Tropical Plants Database. Supports: the synonym Feronia elephantum and the common name.
- Bael Fruit, in Fruits of Warm Climates, Julia F. Morton, 1987, Purdue University NewCROP. Supports: the bael's names, among them golden apple and stone apple.