One of my personal resolutions for 2010 was to try and eat five new foods. It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s harder than you might imagine.

I’m not all that adventurous when it comes to food. I don’t mind trying new things, but it turns out I’m quite picky about what I eat. I either like something or I don’t, there isn’t really a middle ground, and I can be a bit precious about textures and other things.

I wasn’t always this way and I don’t particularly like it, so in an attempt to stem the tide of pickiness, I set up this resolution to pick some new foods and try them out. I headed straight for the exotic fruit section of a certain supermarket, and after a little bit of perusal, I stumbled across this.

The sticker said it’s a Sharon Fruit, and after some investigation on Wikipedia, I have learnt the following:

• It’s actually called a Persimmon. There are a few different types but this one is from Japan. The reason it’s a Sharon Fruit is because it has added chemicals to ripen it. Oh joy. Presumably that was Sharon’s idea.
• You can eat it fresh, dried or cooked, and it’s advisable to take the skin off and enjoy the insides. Apparently, if it gets super duper ripe, you can just pierce a hole in it and scoop the insides out like a yogurt. Gross.
• It’s a bit like a tomato, but takes the shape of a pumpkin and is a nice, bright orange. If you eat it when it is not ripe it could be bad for you, and it can also make horses ill if they eat too many of them from the orchard. Huh.

My first reaction was of relief that the fruit didn’t taste bad. It was hard to compare it to anything, a unique flavour, but if I had to pick something, I’d say it was like a peach. It was sweet, but not quite as strong a flavour as a peach, although it certainly wasn’t bland either. I’m not sure it was appealing, but like I say, I was just relieved it didn’t taste bad.

The bit I didn’t like was the texture. On first glance, it looked okay, as though it would be similar to a mango or a pineapple. It seemed that the more handling the fruit had, trying to remove the skin, etc, the more slippery it got, and to be honest, it was really quite slimy.

I didn’t enjoy the texture and the taste wasn’t anything to write home about, but I ate a good few pieces and was happy with that. I conclude that the Sharon Fruit is weird, a sort of hybrid of other fruits without having anything particularly outstanding to make you want to buy it for itself. At least I tried it though, eh? I wonder what the next food will be.