Wednesday Word: Carambola

[calzephyr]

Carambola - noun.

You probably know the carambola already--it's star fruit produced by Averrhoa carambola trees. Native to tropical Southeast Asia, star fruit can be eaten raw or cooked.

By Salil Kumar Mukherjee - Own work, CC0, Link

Comments

[prettygoodword]

And diving further, this is the Portuguese/Spanish name for it, taken via the former from Marathi (the dominant language around Goa), from Sanskrit. Interesting!

[full_metal_ox]

Starfruit’s sharp refreshing acidic tang—tasting like rhubarb when green and tangerine when yellow to orange—lends itself to juices and marinades.

And the cross-section comes already decoratively shaped; the occasional specimen comes with more than five ribs, affording the opportunity to serve someone a Star of David or Faerie Star:



(Bonus Fun Fact: Damasonium alisma, a completely unrelated pond plant native to (and being brought back from extinction in) Britain, is also known as “starfruit”:

)

[calzephyr]

That's the tricky thing with plants--there's usually more than one with the same name out there!

[full_metal_ox]

Which is what makes scientific names crucial.

Plantain (Plantago major) grows in Alberta:



I’m fairly confident that plantain (Musa x paradisiaca) doesn’t:

[calzephyr]

Thanks for the extra info!

[med_cat]

Didn't know one could cook it ;)

[calzephyr]

Yeah! It's not something I have ever seen locally, so cooking it would not have crossed my mind either.

[med_cat]

:)