Sugar-apple


The sugar-apple, or sweetsop, is the fruit of Annona squamosa, the most widely grown species of Annona and a native of tropical climate in the Americas and West Indies. The Spanish traders of Manila galleons brought it to Asia. The name is also used in Portuguese as ata.
The fruit is spherical-conical, in diameter and long, and weighing, with a thick rind composed of knobby segments. The color is typically pale green through blue-green, with a deep pink blush in certain varieties, and typically has a bloom. It is unique among Annona fruits in being segmented, and the segments tend to separate when ripe, exposing the interior.
The flesh is fragrant and sweet, creamy white through light yellow, and resembles and tastes like custard. It is found adhering to seeds forming individual segments arranged in a single layer around a conical core. It is soft, slightly grainy, and slippery. The hard, shiny seeds may number 20–40 or more per fruit and have a brown to black coat, although varieties exist that are almost seedless.
There are also new varieties being developed in Taiwan. The atemoya or "pineapple sugar-apple," a hybrid between the sugar-apple and the cherimoya, is popular in Taiwan, although it was first developed in the US in 1908. The fruit is similar in sweetness to the sugar-apple but has a very different taste. As its name suggests, it tastes like pineapple.

Nutrition and uses

Sugar-apple is high in energy, an excellent source of vitamin C and manganese, a good source of thiamine and vitamin B6, and provides vitamin B2, B3 B5, B9, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium in fair quantities.
For uses of other fruit from the Custard-apple family see: