A New Fruit -- Nance

It's fun that I can still find food here in Panajachel that I haven't tried before. Today's adventure in eating was a small yellow berry-type thing called nance.
Let me tell ya: you can't win 'em all.
Nance is disgusting!!
Bert said, "I can go the rest of my life without ever eating that again."

Nance

I bought the nance at the market. It cost Q2 for 1 pound. (But I swear that moments before I stepped up, the vendor was calling out Q1 for 1 pound. Hrrm. 😕)

The first thing I did was wash them, just with water, no bleach or chemicals or anything. Then we smelled them. EWWWWWW. Bert said they smelled like chemicals, like "something I shouldn't be eating, like a Tide Pod." Ha! I thought they smelled soapy and like something else familiar but not quite pleasant. I figured it out a bit later. They smelled like fruitcake! But not sweet yummy fruitcake but like old crappy fruitcake with too much allspice and cloves.

Despite the smell, we sampled them anyway! They were soft to bite into with a texture like a pear. They have pits in the middle which means there isn't much fruity bit to eat. They were white inside, a bit juicy, but also kinda tart or bitter.
The taste was pretty much indescribable. Definitely not good. I guess a bit sweet but kinda soapy or something. Just weird. I tried a few different colors and sizes just to be sure I hadn't just eaten one that was unripe but they were all equally unpleasant.

When I Googled "nance" it said they are usually made into desserts and also fermented into liquor. I contemplated that ... but then just threw the rest of them into the compost pile.

Good thing I also bought mangos and plums from the market so I have something yummy to snack on!