South America and India are prime growing locations for the cashew apple. Dont tell me youve never heard of the cashew apple? Perhaps thats understandable because in colder climates we never get to taste the succulent fruit, but we are accustomed to the center meat that is processed and delivered to our stores in the form of cashews.
In India they make candied cashew apples and remove the fibrous center and throw it away (the center nut is what most of the world enjoys). In Brazil, locals make a dish of preserved cashew apples in sweet syrup.
The cashew apple is a delicate fruit that is filled with juice that nationals enjoy and even use for its medicinal qualities. The juice can be processed for a juice drink or fermented for an alcoholic beverage.
The cashew apples are too delicate to survive the trip to northern grocers, so the cashew nut in the center of the apple is often the desired portion of the cashew apple for those in the northern hemisphere. Interestingly nationals do not generally have an interest in the actual cashew getting at it is too much work.
You see, the nut at the center of the cashew apple is wrapped in a caustic and fibrous...