Nass­er Khan

Five fin­ger, al­so known as star fruit, or Aver­rhoa caram­bo­la, its sci­en­tif­ic/botan­i­cal name, is a cu­ri­ous, at­trac­tive fruit of the ox­alis fam­i­ly, Ox­al­i­daceae. This pop­u­lar fruit tree was named in ho­n­our of an Ara­bi­an physi­cian called Aver­rhoes, while the ep­i­thet is Span­ish in ori­gin.

The fruit is pop­u­lar through­out the trop­ics, South­east Asia, the South Pa­cif­ic, Mi­crone­sia, and parts of East Asia. They re­main a lo­cal favourite in those ar­eas but have gained pop­u­lar­i­ty in Queens­land, Aus­tralia, as well as in the Pa­cif­ic Is­lands, Latin Amer­i­ca, the Caribbean, and the south­ern Unit­ed States.

Five fin­ger is an el­e­gant, dense­ly limbed arch­ing and spread­ing small tree with bright green, lus­trous fo­liage. When in flower, it is very dec­o­ra­tive with each slen­der limb smoth­ered in pink­ish red or pur­plish blooms. It is a vig­or­ous tree that may pro­duce sev­er­al har­vests with­in a year.

Five fin­ger is a trop­i­cal and sub­trop­i­cal fruit which can be grown at el­e­va­tions up to 1,200 me­tres (4,000 feet). It prefers full sun ex­po­sure, but re­quires enough hu­mid­i­ty and an­nu­al rain­fall of at least 1,800 mm (70 in). Trees flow­ers through­out the year and typ­i­cal­ly pro­duce fruit at four or five years of age.

Fruits are dis­tinc­tive­ly five-lobed and slice in­to at­trac­tive star-shaped sec­tion. It is about five to 15 cen­time­tres (two to six inch­es) in length and is oval shaped. It usu­al­ly has five promi­nent lon­gi­tu­di­nal ridges but in rare in­stances can have as few as four or as many as eight. The skin is thin, smooth, and waxy and turns a light to dark yel­low when ripe. The flesh is translu­cent and light yel­low to yel­low in colour. Each fruit can have ten to 12 flat light brown seeds about six to 13 mm (0.25 to 0.5 in) in width.

The en­tire fruit is ed­i­ble and is usu­al­ly eat­en out of hand. They may al­so be used in cook­ing and can be made in­to rel­ish­es, pre­serves, and juice drinks.

There are two main types of five fin­ger: the small sour (or tart) type and the larg­er sweet type. The sour va­ri­eties have a high­er ox­al­ic acid con­tent than the sweet type. A num­ber of sweet cul­ti­vars have been de­vel­oped in re­cent years. In the '80s, a pri­vate hor­ti­cul­tur­ist in­tro­duced sev­er­al sweet va­ri­eties of five fin­gers from Thai­land in­to T&T. These va­ri­eties were sub­se­quent­ly prop­a­gat­ed and now can be found through­out both is­lands. To main­tain the sweet va­ri­eties, scion from these trees are graft­ed on­to seedling plants.

Five fin­gers are rich in an­tiox­i­dants, potas­si­um, Vi­t­a­min C and low in sug­ar, sodi­um, and fruit acids. It is a po­tent source of pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary polyphe­no­lic an­tiox­i­dants. Aver­rhoa caram­bo­la has both an­tiox­i­dant and an­timi­cro­bial prop­er­ties and ex­tracts have shown an­timi­cro­bial ac­tiv­i­ty against E.coli, Kleb­siel­la spp, Staphy­lo­coc­cus au­reus, and Pseudomonas aerug­i­nosa.

It be­longs to the ox­alis fam­i­ly mean­ing that fruits con­tain ox­al­ic acid. Oth­er mem­bers of this fam­i­ly in­clude the Bil­im­bi.

Five fin­gers con­tain caram­box­in and ox­al­ic acid, both of which are harm­ful to in­di­vid­u­als suf­fer­ing from kid­ney fail­ure, kid­ney stones, or those un­der kid­ney dial­y­sis treat­ment.

Con­sump­tion by those with kid­ney fail­ure can pro­duce hic­cups, vom­it­ing, nau­sea, men­tal con­fu­sion, and some­times death. Re­cent re­search has iden­ti­fied caram­box­in as a neu­ro­tox­in which is struc­tural­ly sim­i­lar to pheny­lala­nine, as well as a glu­ta­mater­gic ag­o­nist.

De­spite its tox­i­c­i­ty to re­nal­ly-com­pro­mised in­di­vid­u­als, the lev­els of ox­al­ic acid and caram­box­in in five fin­gers are low enough to be safe­ly processed by the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion for whom it is both safe and healthy. It is ad­vised to con­sult a health­care prac­ti­tion­er be­fore eat­ing five fin­gers or its prod­ucts if tak­ing any kind of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drug.

Ripe fruit can be eat­en fresh, sliced in­to sal­ads and al­so used as a dec­o­ra­tive gar­nish for food. Giv­en its high ox­al­ic acid con­tent and ex­treme tart­ness, fruits are juiced and served as a cool­ing bev­er­age. Five fin­ger juice is al­so used as a base for fruit punch­es and oth­er drinks.

In Hawaii, the juice of sour fruits is mixed with gelatin, sug­ar, lemon juice and boil­ing wa­ter to make sher­bet. Fil­ipinos of­ten use the juice as a sea­son­ing. The juice is bot­tled in In­dia, ei­ther with added cit­ric acid (one per cent by weight) or mere­ly ster­il­iz­ing the filled bot­tles for half hour in boil­ing wa­ter. To make jel­ly, it is nec­es­sary to use un­ripe "sweet" types, or ripe sour types and add com­mer­cial pectin or some oth­er fruit rich in pectin such as green pa­paya, to­geth­er with lemon or lime juice. Fruits can be processed in­to pick­les and made in­to chut­neys, sauces, wines and jel­lies. It may al­so be canned, pre­served and dried.

Ripe har­vest­ed fruit tend to per­ish ear­ly. How­ev­er, they stay well in cold stor­age. Fruit do not ripen or in­crease in sweet­ness af­ter be­ing har­vest­ed, there­fore at the ma­ture turn­ing stage they are best har­vest­ed.

Like the bil­im­bi, the juice of the more acidic sour va­ri­eties can be used to clean rusty or tar­nished met­al (es­pe­cial­ly brass) as well as bleach rust stains from cloth. They may al­so be used as a mor­dant in dye­ing.

Five fin­ger trees can al­so be grown and used for or­na­men­tal pur­pos­es for its abun­dant bright­ly coloured and un­usu­al­ly shaped fruits, as well as for their at­trac­tive dark green leaves and laven­der to pink flow­ers. Trees can be eas­i­ly grown in large pots in the gar­den. They will re­main small and bear fruit. Care should be tak­en to se­cure a well-drained soil mix­ture and pots should be kept in full sun­shine and fer­tilised reg­u­lar­ly. If plant­i­ng in the ground, trees can be pruned to keep them man­age­able if space is lim­it­ed.

Five Fin­ger Juice

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

4 ripe five fin­gers

Sug­ar to taste

1 dash bit­ters

3 cups wa­ter (di­vid­ed).

METHOD

�2 Wash and cut up the five fin­ger.

�2 Blend with 1 cup of wa­ter and strain.

�2 Squeeze the pulp to ex­tract more juice.

�2 Add two more cups of wa­ter. Add bit­ters and sug­ar to taste and stir. Mix well.

�2 Ad­just sug­ar if nec­es­sary.

�2 Serve chilled or with ice.

NOTE: You should not drink too much of this juice as it has been known to cause nau­sea, vom­it­ing, ab­dom­i­nal pain and back­ache, es­pe­cial­ly if con­sumed on an emp­ty stom­ach.

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This se­ries is writ­ten in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cyn­thra Per­sad, re­tired di­rec­tor of Re­search, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. For in­for­ma­tion on get­ting copies of the 2 Crops of T&T charts, email fruit­stt@live.com