Creole Week-Soursop A fruit unknown but “Oh so Good” – THIS SITE HAS MOVED
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Sour Sop (Annona muricata) other names Corasol ( French), Guanabana ( Spanish)
I walked into Basse Terre market in Guadeloupe at 1 pm last weekend and I saw several of the vendor packing up. I was getting ready to throw a tantrum in my mind when I noticed about five sellers still waiting for last minute shoppers like me. Basse Terre market is an open market that is fairly well maintained and you can get most of the tropical fruits and vegetables once there are in season. I got most things I had on my list so I started to leave. As I walked through the gate I looked back and saw these prickly friends from my past being displayed. I could not refuse I just had to buy two of them to make a dish or two. It has been almost 15 years since I had a fresh sour sop and I am not that old. The smell that you get from soursop is really distinctive and pleasant. When I sliced through these this morning I could not resist biting into the almost cotton like flesh flavoured with this popular and powerful tropical flavour.
So what do you do with these and, where can you get them if you are not in the Caribbean. The soursop is use explicitly for desserts in the Caribbean. In Guadeloupe there are road side vendors who make a sort of sorbet with them or ice cream and in Barbados we use to enjoy this on Sunday as dessert as a beverage called soursop punch. I frequent super markets in North America and Europe many times during the year. I do not really see these at the popular supermarket chains but you may want to check with your Asian markets and hispanic markets to get them .If the word soursop does not work you can use the other names I stated at the beginning of the article. If anyone knows of any stores in their area that sells sour sop leave it in the comments section for others please.
Preparation
This was my first time actually cutting open a soursop myself and making punch and ice cream. I always use to sit in a stool watching my mom and dad or grandmother separate the membranous flesh . It was my turn to have the joy making this and to create my own household traditions as soursop ice cream and punch are generally not vegan.
The seeds skin and heart of this fruit are not edible. To prepare it you need clean hands and a bowl and you slice the fruit in half or quarters and you will remove the cottony juicy white flesh of the fruit into your bowl. You then would add some cold water to get this flesh even more moist and almost squeeze the flesh in your hands and keep doing that for a few minutes. You can use a fine strainer and squeeze the milky juice through. Add back the seeds in the bowl with a little more water and repeat the process. My grandmother use to wash the soursop juice off until the flesh was tasteless that meant she got all the juice from the fruit. What you would be left with is a milky thick concentrated juice that looks like this. See photo below.
Recipes
Sour Sop Punch
Soursop Soft Serve Ice Cream
The milky thick texture of the soursop makes it an excellent fruit for a creamy ice cream based. I purchased some cookbooks last week and one I was reading through was the Vegan Scoop by Wheeler del Torro. In the book is a bunch of island flavours but I did not see the more obvious one soursop. I took it upon myself to make a soursop ice-cream recipe this morning. This ice-cream can be served soft serve or you can freeze it right down to break your wrist consistency. I love it soft serve because you can really taste the flavour more and it is just one of those things that is better soft serve.
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The old Vegan In The Sun 
I’m sorry, but before I even read your post, I knew I had to leave a comment declaring my love for the fruit I know as guanabana. I have only seen them in costa rica, but I know that they make an excellent fresca con fresas 😉
Fortunately, I have a colleague at work who has a number of soursop trees and so when it is in season, I get more than my fair share! Oh that punch and ice cream is priceless.
I have to say I was never a fan of soursop as a child – I preferred the barbadine punch! But I can enjoy it in ice cream – it’s a really popular ice cream flavour in Trinidad and Tobago.
I liked it as a child but did not love it there is something about the taste in the mouth it gives. I have gotten older to appreciate it but it is something I would use like twice a year to change up my ice cream flavours but it really does a great icecream.
Oh yum! I love soursop. We used to have a tree when I was growing up. The ice-cream looks so silky.
yes when you make this recipe what you are left with is almost like a pudding custard like mixture. It even looks silky before putting in the ice cream maker. The soy and rice creamer are very useful here. I find the rice cream is very neutral so the flavour comes out better as opposed to using dairy>
Another very interesting post! I am learning so much here. That soft serve looks incredible. Do you think I could substitute cherimoya? I don’t think I have ever seen soursops where I live, but cherimoyas seem to be a relative of these?
Maybe you can substitute soursop with Cherimoyas . I think this is called sugar apple but i need to check the scientific name I have for it to verify that it is sugar apple. I think the sugar apple has less flesh so may need a little more. I have about 10 on a tree out back. I will try to make an icecream with it when they look good enough to pick. There will be a few more interesting post this week and next week. Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you! Cherimoyas are smaller and if I’ve understood it correctly soursops are called sugar apples (at least that’s what wikipedia tells me).
no soursops and sugar apple are a totally different thing. wikipedia is always a mess try searching for guanabana and u will see it is different;I have a sugar apple now it and it is really like sugar the taste that is.sour sops have a tarte sweet taste. Cherimoyas are the same size as a sugar apple
ok i usually deal with scientificnams they do not put u wrong the sugar apple scientific nameis *annona squamosa* and the soursop is*annona muricat *a. The taste of both is completely different but they have the same inside
On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 9:32 AM, Taymer GUILLAUME wrote:
> no soursops and sugar apple are a totally different thing. wikipedia is > always a mess try searching for guanabana > and u will see it is different;I have a sugar apple now it and it is really > like sugar the taste that is.sour sops have a tarte sweet taste. Cherimoyas > are the same size as a sugar apple > >
I have pix of the sugar apple or annona squamosa on my Flickr which show the insides as well – similar shiny black seeds as the soursop, but definitely a different fruit.
Thanks Chennette..I believe in scientific names it puts and end to the confusion
Taymer,
In Puerto Rico this is fruit is called Guanabanas. It is so good as a juice, sometimes after I make the juice I freeze it in dixie cups for nice cold freeze fruit pops…for those hot summer days, I also use it in pasteries, paste just like the guava, and it can be used in a array of Latin dishes. In the states it is very hard to find. Where did you find it?
well I live in the French West Indies so it is very abundant here. I think many Mexican groceries will have them.Check back to see if people in the States state where they find this. How do u use it in pastry.I keep imagine making it as a cream with condense soy milk or a muffin stuffing.
How interesting! I’ve never heard of sour sop before.
my grandmother had a soursop tree (think she still does) and there was always soursop punch in her fridge. Can you get Mammy apple in Guadeloupe? I LOVE Mammy apple
Grandma used to puree the Guanabanas and she the added flour, brown sugar, fresh shredded coconut flakes and some of her sweet spices…cinnamon sticks, cloves, fresh crushed ginger and real butter and eggs to make her cookie dough, then she would roll it out and she used the bottom of a glass to cut out the cookie circle, she then would roll it up like a horn and to keep it in place she would use a tooth pick to bake it in the oven. Afterwards she filled it with a butter cream mixture she prepared herself from fresh shredded coconut, pineapple from her backyard…she also used sweet condensed milk fresh homemade cream cheese and pineapple pudding. She passed away but I do remember some of the ingredients she used. Though vegan ingredients do not give the recipe its true flavor its edibile and not bad.
Most definitely 🙂 even in our region, small as it is we still have so many different names for everything, sometimes the same name for different things…every time I post a fruit pic, the comments rain in about the names!
Soursop grows in the wild in my village in Africa. While growing up I enjoyed eating this juicy fruit. I have just recently learnt about its many medicinal properties especially in treating cancer. I wonder why scientists are not making people aware of the goodness in these fruits. I’ll spread the information.
Although the fruit does not grow in the USA, the canned juice can be bought in Asian stores.
Sour sops are found in most tropical islands – plenty of them here in Mauritius and in Seychelles. They are very tasty ‘au naturel’. I got given one yesterday and I have been looking for a sour sop ice cream recipe – I ate the home-made ice cream years ago in Mumbai, India! Awesome!
hey i recently heard that using soursop at least twice per week could prevent cancer, my both parents had cancer so i am trying this>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
You say that soursop is unknown……I think you are wrong….Soursopdrink is something else..try it and you will find the fruit is not unknown…Querino
Where can I find this fruit in New York
Where can I find this fruit in New York
Soursup help to kills canser fruit it self and its leaves and branks also. Its work 10,000 than chemothearapy.
Please tell me where its availabel in India Mumbai.
It is available with SVA India in Mumbai. You can contact them on 9960907921