Just One Food - Soursop or Sweetsop?

I was at my neighbourhood morning market (the other day) when I chanced upon this fruit.....a fruit that I don't usually see selling much these days. 

 

Back in those days, in my aunty's "kampung" (village), you can find it growing abundantly on trees and we would, as a kid, pluck it off the trees and bury them in (uncooked) rice to hasten the ripening process.  Now, I have to pay RM3 for one.
 

I've always known this fruit as "ho mou lau lin" (direct translation: English durian) or otherwise known as "durian belanda" in Malay.
 

(Pic from Wikipedia)

All this while I thought it was called soursop in English until I googled it recently and most of the pics turned out like the ones above.  It has a somewhat spiny, prickly skin compared to the one I know.

 

(Pic from Wikipedia)

I soon realised that the one I've been eating is actually known a sweetsop or sugar apple in English (or buah nona in Malay).  The sweetsop (sometimes also called custard apple) is actually a relative of the soursop.  It is smaller in size and has no soft spikes.  Like the soursop, it has a sweet, delicious and creamy white flesh and black seeds.

(Pic courtesy of cooklikeajamaican.com)

My son loves to drink soursop juice but has never seen the fruit itself.  Why they call it soursop, when the flesh is sweet, baffles me.  Soursop is good as a drink, ice cream or sorbet.

So, when I bought this sweetsop from the market, I told him that this is the fruit of the soursop juice you like so much...I guess I was wrong!!  The juice that we've been drinking is probably soursop juice (though it tastes exactly like sweetsop) but the fruit I've been eating is definitely a sweetsop!

 

So, it looks like I've learned something new.....a soursop and a sweetsop is two different things...did you know?  (Or is it just me...not knowledgeable enough)  The thing I've been calling a soursop all this while was actually a sweetsop :D !!  I absolutely love to eat sweetsop and the only thing that's stopping me is it takes a bit of effort to eat it, but (then again), no pain...no gain, I suppose ;)

 

It's funny, how in our quest for food, we learn a thing or two along the way.....and that's wonderful.  I guess life is a journey of learning!

Soursop or Sweetsop....whatever you want to call it, I like them both :-)