I was a teen when I had my first taste of a cherimoya. I was with my parents at a Vietnamese market in San Jose, and my mom found a good deal on some cherimoyas and got a couple. Cherimoyas are usually ridiculously expensive when you are able to find them ($15-25/lb, anyone?); they are really only at ethnic grocery stores during very specific seasons of the year. My mom cut it open for us and instructed us to remove the outer green skin and to eat the white flesh, spitting out the large black seeds inside. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was eating, but I knew I was in heaven at the very first bite. Cherimoya is commonly referred to as a custard apple in English, and the name is very apt, as the texture, when ripe, truly is like a rich, fruity, almost velvety custard. The taste is hard to describe, but it’s a very tropical flavor. It’s very similar to a mix of very sweet pineapple, papaya, kiwi, and strawberry. That’s a lot of different fruit to compare it to, but that’s because the flavor is extremely sweet and very complex!

So I got my ~$2 USD cherimoya that was about 3 pounds yesterday. We ate it this morning at breakfast, and Chris got so overwhelmed by how much fruit there was and felt so full after we ate it; I have no idea what he was referring to, though. I could have eaten the cherimoya all day long and been totally fine! Today, we went to Surquillo No. 1 and 2 Market, where en route, I picked up another large cherimoya for a tiny bit more money, plus a local Edward mango, a fresh lucuma, and some maracuya/passion fruit. I’ll be like the fruit lady at our hotel breakfast tomorrow morning, but I have no shame and instead, proudly carry my market-purchased, freshly washed fruit onto the breakfast floor!

While I shopped for fruit, Chris took a look at the prepared food stalls and what the locals were eating. We were likely the only tourists in the market that morning and got a lot of friendly smiles. He got us a bowl of chupe de pescado for just a couple bucks after watching all these other people come and go, happily slurping their soups from this one teeny tiny little stall. “Chupe de pescado” literally means “fish stew.” It was quite a wonder to watch the little woman behind the counter prepare it, as the stock pots seemed to almost tower over her! She had a huge stock pot with just fish stock, and another large pot with all the actual fish meat, eggs, and other seasonings. For each bowl, she strained the stock of the fish bones, then added all the accompaniments to the chupe.

I am not sure what kind of fish was in that stew. I don’t know what else was in that thick soup other than shredded and cut up fish, eggs, and some herbs. But I do know that that was likely one of the very best and richest fish soups I’ve ever had the privilege of eating. The deep yellow soup looked like it was just full of fish collagen! The stalls that only sell one or two things are always my favorite places to eat at markets when we travel. If they can make a living just serving one or two things, those one or two things must be darn good. And this was!