How a Fruit Expert Picks the Ripest Fruit

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Tristan Kwong and I Cook at Bonnie's Brooklyn.

They call me fruit time in the restaurant

because I'm responsible for buying, sourcing

and curating all the fruit that goes on the fruit plate.

Today I'm gonna show you guys how to

choose the ripest fruit.

Here we have pineapple.

You can see like the has these little green spots here

but you can see the rest of it is kind of like

golden almost the color it would look like inside.

When they get really, really ripe

they almost turn like golden and start glowing.

The bottoms will become very fragrant.

Once they're ripe.

If you take it at the top here

and grab like maybe the centermost leaf

it should come out with relative ease

and you don't want it to come out like too easy

like you kind of wanna feel a little pluck,

this one little bit tougher,

pineapple is one of the most metal fruits out there

'cause it has bromine in it which breaks down protein.

So anytime you eat a pineapple and you feel

that like tingly kind of stingy feeling in your mouth

it's because the pineapple is dissolving your tissue

in your mouth.

I like to serve it with the skin.

It makes it more recognizable.

It's a big corn in the center that's completely inedible

so I just like to split that down here.

Then I'll go like this, from here I'll take it

and I'll just try to slice right

underneath the skin and then that way when

it hits the plate you can just pop a piece off.

Very good, actually.

This is a watermelon

but I'm sure you know that already.

And I'm sure if you've walked inside of almost

any supermarket during the summer you can see a bunch

of like middle-aged men going

over the watermelon going like this or this.

They're not wrong.

The best way to tell whether

or not they're ripe is one, if they're heavy and two,

if you tap it and on the other side you have

your hand here you can feel the the vibration come through.

The stronger the vibration, the more water

'cause energy travels through water

and nothing is lost there.

The best way in my opinion to pick watermelon

is to pick the heaviest one relative to its size.

What you're looking for

in a ripe watermelon is that it's juicy.

The flesh isn't mely but it's firm and crispy.

Good watermelon.

The best way to find a ripe banana is just to look

at the sugar spotting on the outside.

Don't confuse it with bruising like this is a little bit

of bruising but these spots mean that they're getting ripe.

It means their sugar is crystallizing under the skin.

The best way to store bananas is out on your counter,

away from other fruit

because they are huge ethylene producers.

Most but not all fruits release ethylene

which is why it's a good idea if you're looking

for ripe fruit at the grocery store

to always dig to the bottom of the barrel.

That's where most of the gas gets trapped between the fruit

and those will probably be the most ripe fruit you can find.

And I don't really honestly put them

on the fruit plate often, but we have them

in house sometimes 'cause I like to turbo ripen our mangoes.

But like little coins are nice sometimes you can kind

of wanna buy this.

This is an apple, I think it's a Fuji apple

ripe Apples will start to lose their greenish color.

You can tell if they're juicy based

on relative weight to size.

If it's kind of small and it feels heavy then

that means there's a lot of juice inside of it.

When I go to pick them like I do with most fruit,

I'll pick up one and I'll go like this

and I'll go, oh that feels that heavy.

And then I'll grab the other one, I'll go,

that one feels less heavy so I would take this one

over this one, crunchy sweet, these are fuji apples.

Next up we have pears.

If you see like dark spots on the skin, not to worry

it doesn't mean it's bad, it just means

that the sugar is crystallizing underneath the skin.

Ideally when you pick them they'll be a little bit more soft

with a slight give when you touch them but like not mushy.

So if it feels soft in your hand

it'll likely be soft in your mouth.

Pears, a lot like apples are up to preference.

Some people like them crunchier and less sweet

and some people like them softer and more sweet, yummy.

Here we have a cherimoya,

it's in the family of custard apples.

Mark Twain wrote about this and he said it's

like one of like the king of fruit or something like that.

There's a quote that I don't remember.

The most delicious fruit known to man, Mark Twain.

So you can tell these are ripe when they turn

from like bright green

to a slightly darker color and they start to get squishy.

There are lots of these little black seeds which

if you eat too many are toxic so don't eat the seeds.

They smell like straight up sugar.

It's pudding inside of a skin,

like with seeds you know it's delicious, amazing.

Dragon fruit are actually cacti fruit.

They grow on cactus and native to South America.

These are three different types of dragon fruit.

I know these two look exactly the same.

I can tell the difference because

well I cut them like every day.

You can tell all three are ripe the same way

and that's by giving a little press,

feeling a little bit of give.

It won't dent and it won't spring back.

But you can definitely feel

that it like is soft inside, on these red and white ones,

they'll darken in color a little bit as they ripen

and the green will kind of fade away

but the green will always kind of stay

like this one is pretty ripe but you can see

like the tendrils are getting a little bit more red

toward the top here they're getting a little bit less green.

You can tell when they're getting a little bit riper too

'cause the flesh, instead of being white and opaque

it'll turn slightly translucent around the edges.

Yellow ones same way, I like to start

with the white ones 'cause this one will stain in my knife.

They are bright red

it maybe tastes like a slightly juicier kiwi.

I feel like dragon fruit

are kind of having a moment right now.

I don't really know why.

I don't know if they deserve it,

visually stunning, taste wise, not my favorite.

Damn, that's really good.

So here we have another tropical fruit, papaya.

So when they're ripe they'll get a little bit softer,

a little bit bouncy, when the flesh is like soft,

if you press it too hard

like it will indent and you can feel that indent.

This one on the other hand, rock hard, still green.

This become this in maybe like two or three days

but yeah you kind of want them extra ripe otherwise

they kind of just taste like nothing,

inside, you'll see right here they are hollow

and they have a ton of seeds.

These seeds are actually edible.

I just scooped the seeds out.

There's a little like fibers

that the seeds are connected to.

You can just scrape all that out.

Take the ends off.

Bada ba baba.

They're your golden arches.

I could eat this whole thing in one sitting honestly.

So I think passion fruit

is one of the harder fruit to tell whether it's ripe

or not just because while they do change color

it's not usually the best indicator of when they're ripe.

I think the best way to tell is relative weight to size.

These are a green varietal

and then there's a variety that's more egg shaped rather

than like round inside here there's a lot more liquid

because the liquid is heavier

than the fruit or the flesh itself.

So while this one is larger

it's definitely less heavier than this one.

I'll like to slice the bottom a little bit so it has a base

and then I'll just go straight down the middle

like this and then they'll sit flat right up.

You get a little base.

It's still very tart but slightly sweeter.

This one is way too ripe.

Ooh, it's like a warhead.

I'm really excited cause mango's my favorite fruit.

So these are tent mango.

These are called tufa or champagne mangoes.

You can find these a lot in like Thailand.

I think a really interesting way to check for ripeness

on mangoes in general is to check the stem bit

here you'll sometimes see there's

like a slight stream of like clear sticky liquid

and that's sugar seeping out of the mango.

They both do start completely green when they fruit

and they will change color as they grow,

the riper they get the stronger smelling they'll be.

The best way to tell is based on feeling it, all mangoes

when ripe will be slightly soft to the touch

with like a small give

they'll keep the indent you press into the skin.

Inside of the mango is a huge pit.

You just take the cheek off of it

and you cut a crosshatch pattern, just pop it out like that.

But at home I like to eat 'em like this.

Hmm, I'll eat these in the park like this.

During the summer people look

at me funny and I think it's cause they're jealous.

These are starfruit and they are the same species even

though they look incredibly different, they're just

on completely different ends of the spectrum of ripeness.

Where this one is crazy ripe

and this one is super under ripe.

The skin is a little bit waxy

and you're kind of looking for like firm ish flesh.

This one is dark yellow

almost orange and it looks like it's almost glowing.

And this one is super firm and bright green.

So when they're green, super under rip

when they're glowing super ripe

peel these nasty little edges off.

Once it's done like that, you just cut 'em in little slices.

They're crunchy, they're crisp

they're very juicy and they're like very, very refreshing.

We may not consider avocado your traditional type of fruit.

It is a fruit.

Avocado is one of the highest ethylene producing fruit

which means that if you keep them together

or if you're looking for a ripe avocado, dig to the bottom

they're almost always definitely a riper at the bottom.

Look for the color one, they start bright green

and they'll turn darker as they get ripe.

Two, same thing about give, they'll hold the dent

but you don't want them to be like complete mush.

You kind of want them to feel a little bit firm

and I guess maybe the best visual indicators

that if you pop this little stem bit off

you can see if it's white, it'll be under rip.

If it's green, it's perfectly ripe.

And if it's brown then it's gone too far.

Slice in between and that way it covers more surface area

on your sandwich and it stays together

so it won't completely slip and slide around.

Next we have cherries and the best way to tell the ripe

is whether or not the stem comes out easy.

This one took a little bit of pulling

so I think these could probably go a little bit longer.

You want very, very firm flesh because the skin is so thin

and the meat is right underneath the skin.

The way it kind of feels

in your hand is the way it'll feel in your mouth.

They don't end up

on the fruit plate that often because I'm allergic

to them so I don't really bite 'em that often.

They're easy enough to eat whole where you don't

need to de pit them, but if you wanted to pit them

you can put a small slice, take a chopstick

just kind of push it through the hole.

I'll be itchy a little bit, it's fine.

Here we have some persimmons.

When they get really ripe they turn into darker orange

and they'll even start to like turn brown or black.

That's just sugar forming under the skin.

I dunno if you can see like this one I'm pressing.

Same firmness, nothing.

This one here, easy, easy, indent.

Taiwanese people I know like to eat it super under ripe

but I personally like to wait

until they turn into jello inside so when I serve them

under rip like this, I'll usually peel them

and I'll serve them in rounds

'cause they have that like starburst little sun pattern

for these really, really gooey ripe ones,

I'll cut through the bottom and then I'll just hawk

through it and you can see just like even

in terms of difference of like texture of flesh

but you can see like it's literally falling out of the skin.

But they're delicious both ways.

It's like jello, allow me to quote ghost face killer here.

This wrap is like ziti facing me real TV crash

at high speed strawberry kiwi.

So a ripe kiwi will have a couple of distinct factors.

One is that the skin will get a little bit darker rather

than like pale brown.

The less hairy ones are more pleasant to eat

because the skin is edible.

You cut both the top and the bottom off

and you just kind of take a spoon and I go like this

I'll slip it in and you just spin.

It feels a little bit firm for a ripe kiwi

kinda tart, sweet and a little bit fibrous, but very yummy.

All right, so up next we have strawberries

and we have blackberries.

Yes, you wanna buy things in peak season

you wanna buy things when they're most naturally ripe.

The global trade economy has made seasonality, not a thing

in the past, but less important than it used to be.

Strawberries are maybe like one

of the few fruit that I think seasonality really

really is important.

But they're always definitely better during berry season

which is like late spring to early summer.

But I think the best way to find a a good strawberry

is to look for a really deep red color fresh tops.

When you slice her open and you look inside

there should be a minimal white.

These berries are just okay considering that it is February.

Blackberries are comprised of these like little individual

like juice sacks, you know what I mean?

Like these guys.

And that's what I mean when I say like the same way it feels

in your mouth is the way it'll feel on your fingertips.

I'm like this one, it feels

like I'm squeezing a little baby's cheek.

You know what I mean?

[baby laughs]

We're good, the general rules for citrus are about the same.

So this is a pomelo

this is a tangerine, lemon, lime, mandarin and kumquats.

The best ones always have the most juice

and the best way to tell that is again

relative size to weight.

But another general rule for citrus

is that you wanna look for a very smooth

shiny skinned citrus.

That means the rinds are healthy

it means the inside fruit is protected.

Citrus produces a lot of its own natural oils

and when you see it, it's no longer shiny.

It means it's not producing all enough oil

for fruits like lime and lemon.

They stop ripening once they get picked.

So there's no real way to extra ripe your limes

and lemons once they're bought up.

Next we have a tangerine and a mandarin.

They're very similar in terms of anatomy.

Unlike an orange

you can kind of feel how plump it is on the inside.

They can probably be plump and juicy once you open it up.

So up next I have a naval orange.

A big visual trick for naval oranges is

that they have a little naval little belly button

on the bottom and the bigger it is

traditionally the sweeter it is.

The skin on pomelos is so thick

that the only real way to tell how juicy and how

ripe they are is to feel actually how heavy they are.

So in the last video I was in, I supremed a pomelo

and I got so much flack for it because people told me

you're not supposed to do it that way.

You're breaking up the juice that way.

You're wasting fruit that way.

I know how to peel pomelo.

Okay, I still got 40 minutes every day to

peel each individual pomelo section all right.

So today I'm gonna show you guys how to peel pomelo right.

So for me, I like to start going like this,

taking the top off so you can see it.

Section parts of it.

Peel the rind off, in the center,

you can see right here if I just pull like this

it comes away cleanly on this end.

Oh, it'll come away cleanly on this end.

And just have beautiful little already pre section chunks.

I dunno if you can see like how big

the individual little sections are here.

Like the best way I can describe it is

like eating really crispy shrimp.

Well it tastes kind of like grapefruit

but way sweeter and less bitter, so yummy.

It's time for what I would consider

my favorite part of the day.

It's putting together the fruit plate.

I usually like to start with our dragon fruit.

I like to kind of treat each little thing

as a petal on a flower maybe, I feel like

that feels a little corny

but it's not a lie.

I think fruit tastes better when you cut it yourself

and even better when somebody else cuts it for you.

What you guys are seeing is the results of trial and error.

So that's the fruit plate.

I hope you guys learn something.

Follow me on Instagram @fruitsomm and go out

and support your local fruit ox, slaying in that thing.

I can't say it with the straight face.