Mamey — Once Called the "Fruit of the Gods" by the Maya

Mamey has been cultivated since Maya times, and it's easy to see why it earned a reverent nickname once you taste it: creamy, salmon-orange flesh with a flavour that lands somewhere between sweet potato, pumpkin pie, and honey, sometimes with a faint hint of almond. The football-shaped fruit has thick, scruffy brown skin that gives no visual hints of what's inside, and unripe mamey is genuinely unpleasant — bitter and starchy, nothing like the finished product. Ripening happens the same way as an avocado: it may arrive firm and needs a few days at room temperature, ready when it gives slightly to a gentle squeeze, particularly near the stem.