2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Peach palm (Latin Bactris gasipaes) Is a fruit crop representing the Palm family.
Description
The peach palm is a slender and fairly tall tree, the height of which ranges from twenty to thirty meters. Above, its mighty trunks (however, sometimes along the entire length) encompass impressive rings of black needle-shaped thorns, the length of which can reach twelve centimeters. Such thorns make it much more difficult to collect the fruit.
The leaves of this culture are very long - their length can reach from 2, 4 to 3, 6 meters. All of them are lanceolate and pinnate, boasting a juicy dark green color and rather spiny edges. However, the petioles are also densely covered with numerous thorns.
Small yellowish-whitish flowers form inflorescences up to thirty centimeters long. All inflorescences are located directly under the crowns of trees, while the same brush contains both female and male flowers.
Fruits, hanging in clusters of up to a hundred pieces each, can be either red or orange or yellow. And their shape can be either conical or cupped or oval. Each fruit has six indistinct edges and reaches six centimeters in length. Under the thin skin of the fruit there is a sweet yellowish-orange pulp, and in the center of this pulp there is a single bone of a very impressive size.
The harvest of the peach palm begins to give as early as the third or fourth year of its life.
Where grows
This palm variety is native to the Ecuadorian, Colombian, Peruvian and Brazilian jungles. Since ancient times, the peach palm has been actively cultivated and is no less actively spread by numerous tribes of Indians throughout the Amazon, but this crop has received the highest economic importance only in Costa Rica. In the past few decades, this crop has begun to be grown in some Central American states - in Panama and Nicaragua, as well as in Honduras and Guatemala. In addition, such a palm can be found in the Antilles, as well as in the northern regions of South America. Back in 1924, the first such plantings appeared in the Philippines, and by 1970 this amazing plant reached India.
In fact, this palm tree is capable of growing in any area characterized by a hot and fairly humid tropical climate. And this culture can reproduce both through seeds and vegetatively, but it is completely undemanding to soils.
Application
It is not accepted to eat fresh fruits of the peach palm. True, it is fresh fruits that parrots of a wide variety of species are very fond of, but as the luxurious tropical forests located in the Amazon basin are cut down, the number of these beautiful birds is gradually decreasing. And before use, people boil these fruits for two or three hours in salted water, often adding butter or vegetable oil there. Before you put them to cook, each fruit should be slightly cut into the skin. And they should be eaten still hot.
Most often, these fruits are used as a side dish for a wide variety of fatty dishes, or they are simply eaten with various gravies - the fact is that even boiled pulp is always a little dry.
Sometimes the pulp of these fruits is added to bakery products, in addition, a strong and very rich alcoholic drink is obtained from it. And gourmets willingly eat the kernels that taste like coconut.
If the fruits were collected carefully and do not have dents, then they can be easily stored in their usual room conditions for a week.
The soft cores of the upper parts of the trunks are no less actively used - they are eaten raw or various dishes are prepared from them. They are often used for conservation. By the way, the taste of fresh cores is very similar to the taste of celery stalks.
The wood of such a palm tree is an excellent building material, and local tribes use the leaves to build roofs for their huts. A decoction is also prepared from the leaves, which is often used by the Indians for headaches or abdominal pains.
Contraindications
Due to individual intolerance, allergic reactions cannot be completely ruled out.
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