• Kindness is Punk@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    The fruit of this tree are edible raw or cooked. Although if eaten raw, the skin must be scored for some time in order to release a copious latex.

    The wood of the yacaratiá tree is served as a delicacy in Argentinian restaurants. The wood is soaked in honey or syrup and is also available in chocolate bonbons or in flavored jams with sawdust. The wood is soft and fibrous and the taste has been compared to chestnuts.

    Reminds me of that YouTuber that keeps turning wood into ice cream.

    • trolololol@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Not a chance they can make a restaurant like this in Argentina. They are one of the most reluctant people to try different foods.

      Also I’m double sceptical since the same article says it grows in tropical forests in Nicaragua etc, and Argentina has a single smallish area that could be called tropical forest, and that would be a stretch.

      • LordTE7R1S@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 hours ago

        I totally agree, you can’t get most Argentines to eat anything different from milanesas, pasta and asado. Drinks too, you get hundreds if not thousands of different soft drinks and juices in other countries, here its just cola, fanta and sprite kind of beverages.

        And I never heard of wood being served in restaurants.

    • flora_explora@beehaw.org
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      23 hours ago

      The next paragraph adds the explanation, why its wood is edible:

      Although most wood is indigestible to humans due to the high lignin content, the yacaratiá tree is only around 10% cellulose while the rest is mostly water with very little lignin content. Unlike most plants, cells of this tree contain large spaces within their walls which store water.

      It is in the Caricaceae (Papaya family) and apparently a pioneer species just like papaya trees. No wonder it is mostly water and hardly any lignin!