When it cools down and autumn hits in New Zealand, office kitchens and staff rooms are suddenly abundant with the sweet smell of our widely available little fruit – the feijoa.
But spare a thought for Kiwis who have made Australia home – where they don’t seem to understand our feijoa fantasy.
Piera Maclean, who has lived in Melbourne for a decade, longs for the taste.
“Normally at this time of year in New Zealand everyone’s having feijoa crumble all the time and making cakes. They’ve got so many. Whereas here it’s like if you find three, you know you’re feeling very lucky and it’s the best day ever.”
I’m guessing we* like them because they grow like crazy and so are abundant here. Every neighbourhood has some good foraging trees or people putting boxes of them out by the letterbox for people to take for free.
* I don’t actually like them 😅
I never understood not liking them, it always shocks me that my feelings aren’t shared…
More for me, I guess
I don’t know why I don’t like them. I used to as a kid but grew out of them. I think it’s just not a flavour I enjoy anymore, can’t explain it more than that.
I’m in the states, and my mom had a tree in her yard when I was a kid. She got a gardener when my dad passed, and the gardener treats it like a hedge and always cuts it back. I don’t think he knows it’s a fruit tree and with all the trimming, it never fruits anymore. I’ve asked her to tell the guy not to trim it because I miss eating the fruits. They were always delicious. Having said that, my mom never really ate the fruit, so I don’t think she cares about the fruits and is asking him to cut it back, which is super annoying.
Good luck finding them in the states too. They are not in stores around here. I worked in a whole foods for a while too, and while we did get some exotic fruits at times, never once did I see feijoa.
At my last place we had an older tree that didn’t fruit much anymore. I think conditions probably weren’t very good for it once the other trees around it grew and overshadowed it. I bought a new one and planted it in a better position and even from a young age it had lots of fruit.
I guess if you can’t find the the fruit in stores you probably can’t find the trees. Amazing she managed to get one at all!
Living overseas for twelve years, feijoas are the thing I miss most, because they’re basically impossible to find anywhere else. I found them once in a supermarket in France and never again 🥲
I believe fejoas are native to South America. Wikipedia says that they are hard to transport as they bruise easily, so while they are transported internationally it is pretty uncommon.
It mentions New Zealand, California, and Columbia as the main places that grow them. So if they are hard to transport they probably are hard to find outside of those places. It also mentions some growing happening in southern Azerbaijan so if you happen to be there maybe you’ll find some.
Yeah they are South American, there is even a picture of a feijoa tree in the Colombian passport. But usually when I mention feijoa to South Americans they think I’m talking about ‘feijoada’, which is a Brazilian bean/meat stew 😂
Wikipedia mentions the term “quirina”, I wonder if that would be more familiar to them?
I lived up the road from a feijoa orchard in Colevile in the 80s. We used to have fights with dropped/rotten ones then go jump in the river to wash off. Good times.
They sounds like some great childhood memories, awesome stuff
Love em. great at the start of the season and a bit over it by the end.
