Tacaco has special flavor, deep boiled when fully rippen, can be used to eat alone as an appetizer. You can peel it off like a banana from the tip (the side without thorns) When the fruit is tender it is used like green beans. Nowadays becoming rare its mostly used only to add flavor to stews. Tacacos were not planted but kind of favored wild wine letting it grow in bushy or shadow fences or borders in coffee orchards. The fruits just gathered when falling off.
I wrote a comment some 100 videos ago where I hoped for you to visit costa rica and now I really enjoy all this videos! Still, you haven't even started with my favorite ones :D Chan, Cas, carao, cubaces, lengua de vaca (berry), costa rican blue berries (consanguineum) and the bessst thing ever Gavilana leaves! Pura vida!
Looks like a small green version of the poison sandbox tree exploding "fruit". I'm assuming there's no relation because this has only one seed and it's edible
Yeah the Tree you are thinking of is in the Euphorbiaceae (Spurge) family. Tacaco is in the Sechium genus and the Gourd Family. Neat running into you here, been a looooong time fan.
Fun fact about air bnb knives, its usually impossible to find an actual knife sharpener, but any tile or granite or smooth cement edge you can find can be used to hone the knife. It doesn't damage whatever you hone it on but the knife usually becomes miles more useable. I guess you could also try honing on another knife but I've gotten mixed results with that. I guess you could also use the rough unfired underside of a ceramic plate that has that little lip sticking out that it stands on.
30 plus years ago, my grandma used to sit me on her kitchen table and made me peel off a bowl full of those for the dinner stew. Of course not all of them made it into the stew. I'll find me some next weekend in my local Feria del Agricultor! Pura vida!
Guess what I bought today at the San Isidro feria? Tacacos! There are a couple (more ripe?) red ones in the bag. I just opened one- juicy, milky, sweet and a little dry mouth. I’ll cook the green ones.
In the shot of the tacacos in the market, there was a basket of noni right next to them! Euurrgh! That might have put me off buying the tacacos, because I would have had to get so close to the noni and their smell. You are brave, my friend. (I first encountered noni growing at a park in Hawaii, and had no idea what they were. They looked white and bloated, like one of those beetle grubs you dig up in the garden, and they smelled like dirty sweat socks and cheese, and I didn't even get that close to them!)
Again, you provide me with information I guarantee you I'd absolutely never have without you and your excellent videos. These guys look like something you'd crack open specifically to get at the seed inside. They almost remind me of the almond fruits you made a video about back in the day, just a lot bigger.
I'll be honest, I spaced out for a second near the later half of the video and thought you were putting straight up _toothpaste_ on that half of tacaco. Glad I was wrong lol. Always nice to see another one of your uploads though-- when I thought I've seen it all, I get a pleasant surprise that there's even fruits out there!
I used to remove chayote seeds carefully, not realizing that they’re edible and fit to just cut up with the rest of the fruit. I wouldn’t have recognized these as fruit of a plant in the same genus!
When you said it smelled/tasted like lime, flowers, and cucumber and I'm now thinking a water infusion would be good. I wonder if the dryness would come through in the water.
Today I found Tacacos in a supermarket (automercado). They are amazing. The boiled fruit has a very distinct and prominent scent and aroma of japanese green tea (gyokuro, sencha, …) which i found very interesting and enjoyable :) Moved from Europe to Costa Rica recently and am so excited to check out all the fruits here. Whenever I find something in a market or grocery store that I havent seen yet I always buy it and look if you have a video about it :)
Wow, would you look at that.. a very special fruit was in the basket to the left of the tacaco basket.. i wonder why he didnt pick that one up and give it a try ;D
Hello! I am sort of new to this channel but it’s very interesting to watch! I have binged through a lot of your videos haha. I was wondering if you are allergic to any fruits? You’ve eaten so many fruits from around the world so I wondered.
I've been catching up and noticed you have a hard time cutting some fruit, to the point of possible endangerment. Have you considered purchasing a butcher block, nice cleaver and possibly a machete for these situations - or is it an active choice where you prefer showcasing the difficulties?
Looks like little grenades cooking! It's interesting that they have some chalkiness in them when the flavors they have seem like they'd be the opposite of that. I think you get that kind of powdery thing from raw potatoes, which might have something to do with why it's starchy after being cooked.
I just asked my boss who is from Costa Rica and he said he hates it, but then again I get the feeling he's someone who would still refuse to eat his vegetables! If you have a chance though he said arracache is delicious, more of a tuber than a fruit though.
I've actually bought/withheld myself from buying plants based on Jared's descriptions. Its a bit tougher for me since I'm in a pretty temperate climate and rare, hardy, and worthwhile plants are a tad hard to come by. But its still a pretty decent strategy when the plants are so obscure you can't get any idea of what you're getting into.
Hey there, tico (costarican) here, I just found your channel by accident, and checked for anything on Costa Rica. Let me add some details on tacacos: in Costa Rica tacacos are NEVER eaten raw (they have "mancha", some kind of bitter tasty oil). Tacacos need a lot more cooking (they actually turn brownish when properly cooked. A common way to eat them is to add them to soups (without pealing them) specially "olla de carne" which is beef soup, cook them for at least an hour or more. Then, to eat them, you can either cut a bit at the top, and peal the hard shell. The tacaco seed teste very good too. Another thing to consider is how ripe the tacacos are, if they are very ripe use them in soups, if they are unripe, small, they can be boiled as you did and added to salads, unripe tacacos don't need peeling. The ripe tacacos are much more fibrous than unripe ones. (The ones you got were the ripe ones that require much more cooking). So, in summary, you would need to taste tacacos again :D
I'd love to be able to try making a cream soup with these, maybe cut them into halves, throw 'em into the oven and roast them until they brown a little like a baked pumpkin... then saute some onions, throw in some herbs, throw these in and add some soy milk and blend it all up... hmm and serve it with some chili oil drizzled on top and a few thick slices of toast.
Okay so i did a bit of research, i'm not very well versed in classical Nahuatl especially not costa rican classical Nahuatl, but from what i could find it's a bit confusing especially that there was a change in spelling conversations at some point when transcribed into the latin script, the word tlacuā (probably) /t͡ɬaˈkʷaː/ means "to eat" probably intransitive and cua /kʷa/ means "to eat" transitive now it could be that with reduplication cua → cuacua means "to chew" probably also transitive tho that's just deductive reasoning. However tlacuahuac /t͡ɬaˈkʷaː.wak/ does mean "a hard thing" Which i find most likely since, unless tlacuahuac comes from the word tlacuā which is possible or that they at least share an etymology considering its intransitive, that that word in and of itself can mean hard, it's very unlikely that it would be called something that is like "to eat" intransitive plus "to eat" transitive reduplicated. But then again if someone knows more about Nahuatl linguistics please correct me.
En Costa Rica no hay nombres con origen náhuatl, ya que los indígenas costarricenses son descendientes de los chibchas de Suramérica y no de los aztecas y mayas. El nombre tacaco es un nombre de la lengua indígena huetar.
@@eltrew In Costa Rica there are no names with Nahuatl origin, since almost all Costa Rican autochthonous indigenous people are descendants of the Chibchas of South America and not of the Aztecs and Mayans, the only indigenous people with Mayan ties are the Chorotegas of Guanacaste, but the tacacos does not exist in that area of the country. The name Tacaco is a name of the Huetar indigenous language located in the Central Valley of the country and is where it is planted and cultivated.
I’m sorry, but when you said “It’s really complicated” at 4:25, I immediately envisioned a teenage emo boy talking about his relationship with the girl he has a crush on.
@@WeirdExplorer - You are correct! I cant believe I somehow missed that episode from back in the day. Gotta say, I miss that old musical intro. Thanks as always for the great content
If noni is considered a "famine food" and has the abhorrent taste everyone describes, why is it sold at the market? (at the very first seconds of the video). What is it used for?
@@GirishManjunathMusic Right, the worse it tastes the more conditions it must heal and more efficiently as well... Yeah, you're right, basic human-medicine concept...
![[Live] : ONE 169 วันนี้!! "อนาโตลี vs อูมาร์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IK3YZVWuFJg/mqdefault.jpg)
Check out this video on the Chayote: th-cam.com/video/ouZ6Jo3nkio/w-d-xo.html
Tacaco has special flavor, deep boiled when fully rippen, can be used to eat alone as an appetizer. You can peel it off like a banana from the tip (the side without thorns) When the fruit is tender it is used like green beans. Nowadays becoming rare its mostly used only to add flavor to stews. Tacacos were not planted but kind of favored wild wine letting it grow in bushy or shadow fences or borders in coffee orchards. The fruits just gathered when falling off.
So when the recipe said "boil for 10 minutes" I assume they should've been added to a steady boil, instead of what we saw?
@@Patrick.Weightman correct
I wrote a comment some 100 videos ago where I hoped for you to visit costa rica and now I really enjoy all this videos! Still, you haven't even started with my favorite ones :D
Chan, Cas, carao, cubaces, lengua de vaca (berry), costa rican blue berries (consanguineum) and the bessst thing ever Gavilana leaves!
Pura vida!
Ah, the joys of Air B&B knives
Its a constant struggle haha
@@WeirdExplorer might be wise to invest in a small switchblade
@@gokiburi-chan4255: Or a large Bowie knife.
Or a katana...
@@WeirdExplorer I’m terrible at sharpening but if you’re not, packing a small whetstone might be wise…
Looks like a small green version of the poison sandbox tree exploding "fruit". I'm assuming there's no relation because this has only one seed and it's edible
Yeah the Tree you are thinking of is in the Euphorbiaceae (Spurge) family. Tacaco is in the Sechium genus and the Gourd Family. Neat running into you here, been a looooong time fan.
😄 didnt expect to see you here, its cool seeing my interests overlap haha
It's a little bit friendlier looking 😄
Love seeing your videos on Costa Rican fruit! Been binging all your videos for weeks now, love your work :)
Glad you enjoy it!
Fun fact about air bnb knives, its usually impossible to find an actual knife sharpener, but any tile or granite or smooth cement edge you can find can be used to hone the knife. It doesn't damage whatever you hone it on but the knife usually becomes miles more useable. I guess you could also try honing on another knife but I've gotten mixed results with that. I guess you could also use the rough unfired underside of a ceramic plate that has that little lip sticking out that it stands on.
My mom usually uses the underside of a ceramic dish (the part that doesn't have glaze) to sharpen knives.
Useful tips!
30 plus years ago, my grandma used to sit me on her kitchen table and made me peel off a bowl full of those for the dinner stew. Of course not all of them made it into the stew. I'll find me some next weekend in my local Feria del Agricultor! Pura vida!
Guess what I bought today at the San Isidro feria? Tacacos! There are a couple (more ripe?) red ones in the bag. I just opened one- juicy, milky, sweet and a little dry mouth. I’ll cook the green ones.
In the shot of the tacacos in the market, there was a basket of noni right next to them! Euurrgh! That might have put me off buying the tacacos, because I would have had to get so close to the noni and their smell. You are brave, my friend.
(I first encountered noni growing at a park in Hawaii, and had no idea what they were. They looked white and bloated, like one of those beetle grubs you dig up in the garden, and they smelled like dirty sweat socks and cheese, and I didn't even get that close to them!)
Again, you provide me with information I guarantee you I'd absolutely never have without you and your excellent videos. These guys look like something you'd crack open specifically to get at the seed inside. They almost remind me of the almond fruits you made a video about back in the day, just a lot bigger.
I hated these when I was a kid, but now love them.
“Like raviolis” I thought the same when I saw them floating! Love your videos
I'll be honest, I spaced out for a second near the later half of the video and thought you were putting straight up _toothpaste_ on that half of tacaco. Glad I was wrong lol.
Always nice to see another one of your uploads though-- when I thought I've seen it all, I get a pleasant surprise that there's even fruits out there!
Saaame :'D
I had to rewind a bit
I used to remove chayote seeds carefully, not realizing that they’re edible and fit to just cut up with the rest of the fruit. I wouldn’t have recognized these as fruit of a plant in the same genus!
Very cool. I'm always interested in hearing about different, unique, and complex flavor profiles of the fruits you try.
You have added so much to my life by just living your own. Thank you 😊
The flavors on this fruit sound really interesting
this show helps a ton thanks mate
When you said it smelled/tasted like lime, flowers, and cucumber and I'm now thinking a water infusion would be good. I wonder if the dryness would come through in the water.
You don’t have to sweat tacacos worrying about this review. It’s a great video!
always enjoy your content. thanks.
The bitter spit was priceless Jared. Big Huggzz 🤗💜
its a very nice looking fruit. aesthetically pleasing... exotic
Today I found Tacacos in a supermarket (automercado). They are amazing. The boiled fruit has a very distinct and prominent scent and aroma of japanese green tea (gyokuro, sencha, …) which i found very interesting and enjoyable :) Moved from Europe to Costa Rica recently and am so excited to check out all the fruits here. Whenever I find something in a market or grocery store that I havent seen yet I always buy it and look if you have a video about it :)
Thank you for sharing video.
that's great interesting.
Wow, would you look at that.. a very special fruit was in the basket to the left of the tacaco basket.. i wonder why he didnt pick that one up and give it a try ;D
🤢
I know, he really must've had to restrain himself from getting that one
@@WeirdExplorer what are they talking about?
Its amazing you are still healthy and fit after eating all these exotic fruits throughout the years. Wow. God keep you well.
Jared, will you be trying flowers, leaves or stems in the future? I would love to see those videos.
hat was very interesting, thanks for sharing!
Exciting!! Thank you
You got me interested in trying new foods from different cultures and countries also with the seed removed it looks like a forbidden fleshlight
Bro.
I'm learning english and one technique is by searching images of unknow words, now I know how a fleshlight looks like
Last part not needed
@@anacleto_kgb "Add to Cart"
@@anacleto_kgb congratulations
should make a salad like potato salad type of thing with it, bet it would be good
Dude start a series called " weird plant medicine explorer " and start with san pedro cactus 🌵 hahahah
I'm just glad you still have all your fingertips.
Seeing that smarter every day actually supports you is cool
Could you roast the seed? Like how almonds become much more palatable when roasted.
Hello! I am sort of new to this channel but it’s very interesting to watch! I have binged through a lot of your videos haha. I was wondering if you are allergic to any fruits? You’ve eaten so many fruits from around the world so I wondered.
Interesting looking fruit
You know you just stumbled upon a very rare fruit when even the English Wikipedia doesn't have it yet
I love how you scanned the camera over the basket of noni...
bonus: tacaco is really fun to say
I've been catching up and noticed you have a hard time cutting some fruit, to the point of possible endangerment. Have you considered purchasing a butcher block, nice cleaver and possibly a machete for these situations - or is it an active choice where you prefer showcasing the difficulties?
"Maybe they're like... ravioli." I lol'd
I would love this fruit 😋
When did you change your name from weird fruits explorer?
the spikes reminds me of trapa spp. aka "water caltrops" have you tried those?
omg didn't know you were here!!!!!!!!! I would have taken you to try Jagua fruit
Looks like little grenades cooking! It's interesting that they have some chalkiness in them when the flavors they have seem like they'd be the opposite of that. I think you get that kind of powdery thing from raw potatoes, which might have something to do with why it's starchy after being cooked.
Im from costa rica living for 30 years and i never heard of TACACO in my life
I don’t know why I thought this was like a papaya variety related to the babaco when I saw this 🤣. I got a new pepper if you’d like to try it
Have you tried pejibayes en Costa Rica? That's the only place I've seen them there really good when boiled
yep! th-cam.com/video/6QMn_Ub8Hqg/w-d-xo.html
Are thier any fruits exclusive to the US?
It would be cool to see you do a catch and cook but a fruit version. So basically foraging with a cooking lesson at the end
I do that sometimes. I actually filmed a bit of the tacaco vine, but sadly the footage is lost.
@@WeirdExplorer have you had the schisandra berry made by the Chinese 5 spice or Chinese Magnolia vine?
How about cooking it for less time or temperature?
You should have made some sort of tacaco taco, just for the the fun of it
ah missed opportunity. It would be good for that too
I just asked my boss who is from Costa Rica and he said he hates it, but then again I get the feeling he's someone who would still refuse to eat his vegetables! If you have a chance though he said arracache is delicious, more of a tuber than a fruit though.
Is it maybe high in some sort of latex or oxalates and that’s what gives it the mouth and throat feelings
Can you try a fresh macapuno?
Another reason they're fairly hard to come by is that they're harder to grow than chayotes from my experience.
Tiene toda la razón! They are wild and usually grow their vines in fairly shaded places. They love barb wire fences from what I've seen
Tacaco on soup yuuuum... I leave it a lot more on the hot water
Sounds like a fruit I would like.
I have delayed purchasing an ilama tree until we hear a review from your trusted taste buds, lol
Really appreciate what you do.
Ha, I still need to try that one. I hear good things though.
I've actually bought/withheld myself from buying plants based on Jared's descriptions. Its a bit tougher for me since I'm in a pretty temperate climate and rare, hardy, and worthwhile plants are a tad hard to come by. But its still a pretty decent strategy when the plants are so obscure you can't get any idea of what you're getting into.
The most common way to eat tacacos is in soups, in Olla de carne is delicious
did is see some nice noni right next to it at the market? ;)
When you read "tlaquah quaqua" I read it as "tea la caca" which means ”poop tea" in Spanish lmao
Hey there, tico (costarican) here, I just found your channel by accident, and checked for anything on Costa Rica. Let me add some details on tacacos: in Costa Rica tacacos are NEVER eaten raw (they have "mancha", some kind of bitter tasty oil). Tacacos need a lot more cooking (they actually turn brownish when properly cooked. A common way to eat them is to add them to soups (without pealing them) specially "olla de carne" which is beef soup, cook them for at least an hour or more. Then, to eat them, you can either cut a bit at the top, and peal the hard shell. The tacaco seed teste very good too. Another thing to consider is how ripe the tacacos are, if they are very ripe use them in soups, if they are unripe, small, they can be boiled as you did and added to salads, unripe tacacos don't need peeling. The ripe tacacos are much more fibrous than unripe ones. (The ones you got were the ripe ones that require much more cooking). So, in summary, you would need to taste tacacos again :D
Look at them in their box beside those lonely noni.
I'd love to be able to try making a cream soup with these,
maybe cut them into halves, throw 'em into the oven and roast them until they brown a little like a baked pumpkin...
then saute some onions, throw in some herbs, throw these in and add some soy milk and blend it all up...
hmm and serve it with some chili oil drizzled on top and a few thick slices of toast.
nono wait, forget that, Tacaco Taco
@@TheFloatingSheep LMAO I had the exact same idea
best part is, it might actually be half decent as a vegetable in Mexican food
@@StuffandThings_ yeah, it kinda looks like a good avocado substitute once you boil it
@@TheFloatingSheep I was thinking more like a substitute for Nopales, with that sort of vegetal taste being described
@@StuffandThings_ oh I see
"They're floating to the surface, so maybe they're like ravioli." 😆😆😆
I wonder if chilli pepper would be good on it?
I want to ask what botany book you read please 😅
Cool, they kinda look like massive capers!
Okay so i did a bit of research, i'm not very well versed in classical Nahuatl especially not costa rican classical Nahuatl, but from what i could find it's a bit confusing especially that there was a change in spelling conversations at some point when transcribed into the latin script, the word tlacuā (probably) /t͡ɬaˈkʷaː/ means "to eat" probably intransitive and cua /kʷa/ means "to eat" transitive now it could be that with reduplication cua → cuacua means "to chew" probably also transitive tho that's just deductive reasoning.
However tlacuahuac /t͡ɬaˈkʷaː.wak/ does mean "a hard thing"
Which i find most likely since, unless tlacuahuac comes from the word tlacuā which is possible or that they at least share an etymology considering its intransitive, that that word in and of itself can mean hard, it's very unlikely that it would be called something that is like "to eat" intransitive plus "to eat" transitive reduplicated.
But then again if someone knows more about Nahuatl linguistics please correct me.
En Costa Rica no hay nombres con origen náhuatl, ya que los indígenas costarricenses son descendientes de los chibchas de Suramérica y no de los aztecas y mayas.
El nombre tacaco es un nombre de la lengua indígena huetar.
@@soniaari5338 i don't speak Spanish 😅, sorry mate
@@eltrew In Costa Rica there are no names with Nahuatl origin, since almost all Costa Rican autochthonous indigenous people are descendants of the Chibchas of South America and not of the Aztecs and Mayans, the only indigenous people with Mayan ties are the Chorotegas of Guanacaste, but the tacacos does not exist in that area of the country.
The name Tacaco is a name of the Huetar indigenous language located in the Central Valley of the country and is where it is planted and cultivated.
Missed your chance to pick up some noni
How would you know if it is ripe?
Nice!
Thanks!
I want the seeeeeddssss pls, how can i get them?
Interesting
What if you added it to devilled eggs for more hardy flavor alongside the paprika
Good news everyone... It's a suppository!
😯
It does act like a chayote -- you boil it, peel it, and it's kind of starchy.
interesting!
Does it grow on a tree? Or a vine?
I live in Hawaii and want to grow it.
They grow on a vine, same as chayotes and cocoros.
When will we see Tacacokethup?🙃
Ha, this one wouldn't be too good for that. I do have a new ketchup video coming up soon though!
I’m sorry, but when you said “It’s really complicated” at 4:25, I immediately envisioned a teenage emo boy talking about his relationship with the girl he has a crush on.
I rather enjoyed the matterhorn-esque wind sounds.
The other one that's related reminds me of a cashew apple,I guess it's a bit harder though?
In Mexico when someone is "having a cow" they say "pariendo chayotes" giving birth to chayotes in English
looks like a giant caper
This fruit is 100% costa rican, doesn't exist in any other country in the world, due to is native from CR
This one definitely sounds like a vegetable when your cutting it hahaha
Have you tried amelanchier aka serviceberry aka shadbush yet? I searched your channel to no avail
I think it's under Saskatoon berry:)
@@WeirdExplorer - You are correct! I cant believe I somehow missed that episode from back in the day. Gotta say, I miss that old musical intro. Thanks as always for the great content
Mayonnaise is a little like bacon, makes everything taste a better. WAIT! Mayonnaise on bacon! Gtg
Is that a knife or a spatula
Try letting the chiyote ripen!
in guatemala chayote was called chocho. but in spanish that is a bad word lol :P
If noni is considered a "famine food" and has the abhorrent taste everyone describes, why is it sold at the market? (at the very first seconds of the video). What is it used for?
Medicine.
I'm guessing
Casual torture, obviously.
@@csweezey18 autoflagellation
@@GirishManjunathMusic Right, the worse it tastes the more conditions it must heal and more efficiently as well... Yeah, you're right, basic human-medicine concept...
Dude, if anything, you could work as a taste tester for different companies
any similarities to Artichokes?