Top 10 WEIRDEST FRUIT That Grows in The USA (I actually tried them!)

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Full episodes of fruit featured in this video:
1. Pawpaw: • Paw Paw Review at the ...
2. Texas Persimmon: • Texas Persimmon (Diosp...
3. Maypop: • Maypop Review & Jam Re...
4. Thimbleberry: • What are THIMBLEBERRIE...
5. Yucca: • YUCCA FRUIT - A Strang...
6. Osage Orange: • How to eat an Osage Or...
7. Mayapple: • MAYAPPLE - A North Ame...
8. Spiceberry: • SPICEBUSH BERRIES : Re...
9. Chokeberry: • CHOKEBERRIES (Aronia) ...
10. Cloudberry: • CLOUDBERRY : My Hunt F...
Other top tens:
Weirdest fruit in the world: • 10 OF THE WEIRDEST FRU...
Weirdest fruit in the world, The Return: • 10 OF THE WEIRDEST FRU...
Weirdest fruit in the world, The Revenge: • 10 of The WEIRDEST Fru...
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Smarter Every Day, Loftyrex

[@WeirdExplorer]

Full episodes of fruit featured in this video: 1. Pawpaw: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sIbcY4JppqmHbqs 2. Texas Persimmon: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4C5cnWqrNKVo9E 3. Maypop: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fnqrdoGDZpqSla8 4. Thimbleberry: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGPdpWicrt56brM 5. Yucca: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aJvChamogc2iipI 6. Osage Orange: kzbin.info/www/bejne/amG4aXluj6lsnJI 7. Mayapple: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqfPaZtmmbNjm5I 8. Spiceberry: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpynaX6Ln96FiNE 9. Chokeberry: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZ-rp3mehM-Fpq8 10. Cloudberry: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l5jRpoeYjdqLq5I

[@CobraRaptor]

Would like to see a review on a ripe Pink Crabapple, and a underrated species found in the Midwest, here in MN I'm always on the lookout for the trees

[@gonorrheadischarges3021]

It is "weird" that you apologized for your channel'name...weird,yes You are... Paw paw...every year I watched treasure hunter aquachigger eat that. And we know you like yuca...

[@gaybear5328]

MayPop, when I was a small, we called them Railroad Fruit. Because we would find them near railroad tracks

[@addictofanime]

I have maypop which grows seasonally in my yard, they take ages to ripen here in Northern North Carolina but they taste like a milder and sweeter purple passion fruit (sorry not super imaginative, my sense of taste isn’t great) with a noticeable tang at the end. Also there ain’t no “may” about them popping when you step on em, it’s like stepping on a small balloon

[@laureljackson9989]

@@gonorrheadischarges3021 hhh

[@lilykep]

When I was a young kid like 7/8 we had a persimmon tree in our back yard, every year I'd gorge myself on persimmons. We only stayed in that house for a few years and after we moved I greatly missed that tree. When I got older I went on a hunt for persimmons like the ones we had at that house but I could never find them. Every time I described them as small and black with a large seed I'd get strange looks, thank you for helping me find an actual name for the persimmons I ate as a kid!

[@michaelblackwell7408]

We had persimmon wars with the neighbor kids. Stick a semi mushy persimmon on the end of a long flexible stick or branch and give it a fling. They'd whistle through the air.

[@justjoy1229]

Texas. Black, marble sized very sweet persimmons. Trees grow wild. Called Black persimmons.

[@docE3885]

I feel the same way about the giant gravinsteen apple tree in my grandmas back yard. Every couple years they would grow as big as grapefruit and juicy as pears. I would give about anything for one more basket of them to turn into apple butter or just one to eat.

[@andrefromelpasotexas3236]

What parts of Texas were y’all in? I loved in Dallas for years and never saw those, although we did have Osage orange there. We called them horse apples

[@lilykep]

@@andrefromelpasotexas3236 At the time we were living just south of Corpus Christi

[@VickiBowers]

My grandma Susie had a Yucca plant out by the driveway. She called it "Soapweed," because one could make soap from the roots. I thought she was making it up. "Oh, Grandma Susie, why would you say a thing like that?" She was so tolerant and kind. I wish I had been less skeptical.

[@ralphralpherson9441]

Isn't it peculiar how we disregard the words of our elders and all our "kooky aunts" and "weird uncles" as children, but as we get older, and they invariably vanish into time, we realize how wise and full of useful tidbits they were?

[@kristopherguilbault5428]

@@ralphralpherson9441 Hence my Grandfather and I Quote... ' Wish in one hand , Shit in the other, See which one fills up first! ". Wise words right there... Applies to Sooo Much ...

[@iainburgess8577]

@@ralphralpherson9441 yes .. but all too often, for many of us, also bound up W complex family issues, old biases, old attitudes, and/or inherited familial abuse behaviours. Trying to filter the wisdom & the good memories & retain them can be hard.

[@nothxkbai]

Yucca leaves can be used to make soap as well. just pull apart the fibrous strands and rub them back and forth in your hands with some water and it will lather right up. learned that trick on a school field trip decades ago.

[@VickiBowers]

@@nothxkbai Cool! Good to know, thanks!

[@janet6421]

I recently planted a few pawpaw trees. I did my homework on them and found out why most people don't grow them. 1. they have a tap root so growing them in pots is problematic 2. they need shade when small and sun when big if you want to get a good harvest 3. they require a lot of water but will die if their roots stay wet 4. they are not self fertile and you need 2 different verities to cross pollinate 5. they are pollinated by flies and carrion beetles as their flowers smell like rotten meat. 6. mine are struggling because some bug has been eating the leaves

[@Fiona2254]

I just planted two and my goats ate the new leaves🤦🏻‍♀️ my husband forgot to close the gate. They are leafing again so I’m hoping they survive.

[@janet6421]

@@Fiona2254 Last year I planted 4 of them. 1 was cut about 2 inches from the ground. That one is behind the others but it still has green buds now. Good luck

[@williammurphy3846]

You should be able to hand pollinate them but that sounds like the least of you problems. i really enjoy your videos.

[@DJ-fn3jm]

I have a few tree in my yard. The damn racoons eat them just before they get ripe.

[@barxracerful]

Also they are prohibitively expensive to buy. 75$ for a twig half the size of a pencil and you need 2 for this 150$ experiment

[@ybor363]

I used to pick cloud berries when I lived in Alaska. There was never enough to make jam but I cut it with salmon berries & that was some of the best jam I ever had. It definitely didn't last long.

[@perfid-deject2027]

Hell yeah

[@perfid-deject2027]

How weird would peanut butter and cloud berry / salmon berry jam be

[@judithkimmerling770]

At first I did think they were salmonberries. I lived in Western Oregon and could find salmonberries in the forests but there were never very many.

[@Lastman737]

The truly weird fruit were the friends we made along the way .

[@kyrab7914]

Isn't that what we're here for?

[@danniellebrown8996]

Best comment 🤣

[@rexacej8040]

ayo?

[@dewaldsteyn1306]

Wdym?

[@SelwynClydeAlojipan]

Weren't they made into fruitcakes?

[@anthonyg13emergencyvideos]

When I was about 5 or 6 I noticed that There was a fruit tree in our yard and no one in my family knew what it was. After finding out it was loquats we tried them and they are really delicious.

[@RaspK]

Loquats are very popular here in Greece; funnily enough, both my family and my wife's have a loquat tree, in spite of being in very different regions in the country!

[@jayolovitt5969]

I’m watching loquats flower at my workplace and looking forward to eating them. Best (generally) free fruit in Australia! Also just a beautiful tree, I’d love one in a garden even if it never fruited.

[@uiomancannot7931]

@@jayolovitt5969 Yeah, here in NZ we have a lot of loquat trees. Never see the fruit for sales though.

[@lazylinx4stinx]

@@uiomancannot7931 so true I've never thought about that it's always stealing them from a neighbour's tree haha I wonder why they don't get sold much here 🤔

[@MermaidMakes]

Used to live in Florida where there are tons. It’s one of my favorite fruits, I wish they shipped/ had any sort of shelf life.

[@annebird9195]

When I was like 8 I found a patch of may apples in the woods and checked them every day to see if they were ripe. My mom and I decided it would be ripe tomorrow, but the next day they were all gone and I was mad about not getting to try it for a while. That was a really weird flash back of something I totally forgot about.

[@nola504creole5]

Haaaaa Ha (nelson muntz voice-from the Simpsons)

[@Epona52]

The Osage Orange now grows here in Nebraska . . . there's a row planted along the country dirt road about 4 miles from me. However, I learned about them in North Carolina. We use the whole fruit, set on a plate, to keep our basement spider-free. A grove in the pasture provides an insect-free shade space for livestock, if the trees are limbed up.

[@ToddiGreat-le2qu]

Beau d'arc

[@ladyintheattic]

The Osage Orange is known to my family as Spider Balls. We leave them whole in a bowl as decor and noticed we were no longer plagued by wolf spiders when they were present. Huge improvement to our quality of life, plus they are visually cool.

[@bigdog421]

God i thought these were fake, I've only heard of them from this youtube video doing a deep dive on Adult Swim's "This House has People in It"

[@vantheman1016]

thats funny im from indiana and call them the same thing grew up with my dad putting them in when it starts to get cold and the usual 10-20 wolf spiders would go too almost zero it seems, always wondered if they were a fruit.

[@4nciite]

If you're plagued by Wolf Spiders then you must have a lot of other venomous spiders as that is the Wolf Spiders favorite food.

[@patric4401]

Growing up we called them 'hedge trees' and the fruit were hedge balls. That's because the wood was often used in fences. They were notorious for re-growing from the stumps and even from the cut trunks when used as fence posts. The 'fruits' were also notorious. Supposedly if cows ate hedge balls it would taint their milk and turn it green. There were several trees in our neighborhood, and the kids were set to policing the hedge balls and disposing of them before they could rot and release their seeds.

[@itschrif]

We also call them Horse Apples in Wichita

[@Techsupport243]

I have pawpaws in my yard. We considered them a weed tree because they grew everywhere. Thought they were poisonous until recently. Probably should try them.

[@urblotasunkynewulf615]

They taste like a chalky banana. Big black seeds.

[@michaelblackwell7408]

Where are you? I want to try but I'm in mid mo. The little black berries and hedge apples are all I see around me.

[@aw6707]

@@michaelblackwell7408 paw paws thrive in Mid MO! The state wildflower nursery in Jeff and University KC both sell trees for planting.

[@sanejam7]

Shoot I'll send you some $ for some to try.

[@cailin4367]

Do it!! They truly are tasty

[@Crithosceleg]

I didn't realize that thimble berries were on the rarer side, we have them growing like crazy on our property, right alongside the blackberries and various other bramble berries. Interesting!

[@edwardfletcher7790]

As I suspected, 10,000 -13,000 years ago, woolly mammoths, ground-sloths, and several other now extinct mammals ate the Osage orange fruits. Which is why the trees are so rare now...

[@ToddiGreat-le2qu]

And what , pray tell , made you suspect of such ?

[@TheChickadee1999]

I've picked and enjoyed Texas persimmon around every year. Because the seeds are toxic but the pulp clings to it, and the skin is pretty papery and easy to remove, I crush it and wash the pulp in a sieve, then cook it into a rich, molasses-black fruit butter. Highly sweet, tastes like cooked apple with cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and vanilla, a little chocolate

[@WeirdExplorer]

Good to know!

[@cerverg]

There's a similar plant that tastes better with a bigger fruit (Diospyros californica). Unfortunately, it's very rare and as the name suggests it's probably from somewhere around California. It's hard to find seeds only. It's hardy to zone 8-ish (there's no problem growing in zone 9 and it can be grown in a container it's a relatively slow grower)

[@nickmonks826]

I just eat the seeds, how toxic are they?

[@ringofasho7721]

@@WeirdExplorer I was expecting to see mayhaws and crabapples included

[@claritey]

Texas persimmon seeds aren't toxic to humans or animals, they are commonly eaten by animals and end up in their feces which is a big part of the persimmon's reproduction strategy. Where did you get the idea they are toxic?

[@ranterofall]

Timestamps 1:18 - Paw Paw 3:30 - Brightland Ad 5:11 - Texas Persimmon 6:43 - Maypops 7:56 - Thimbleberry 9:35 - Yucca 10:56 - Osage Orange 13:55 - Mayapple 15:45 - Spiceberry 16:56 - Chokeberry 18:56 - Cloudberry

[@jonathanbarnes3061]

Thanks.

[@Crackpidgeonextreme]

A true hero

[@deminybs]

I was looking at the time stamps like where is hedge apple?? didn't realize it had a different name, and my parents /most the family always thought they were poisonous....lol I'll have to try it, my step dad has a tree in the back pasture that drops these like crazy & damn I didn't know mayapples fruited either!! I just always see them before flowering in the spring while hunting morels

[@Mindsi]

Rambutan?😊

[@ExpandDong420]

​@@deminybsosage orange

[@SunnyIlha]

This show should have 4.28 mil. views. Btw, The commentary thread here is gold.

[@IkeanCrusader1013]

Hey, thimbleberries used to grow on my grandparents farm! Also had them in the backyard of a house they got later on. Love those things! Greetings from Wisconsin :D

[@deathpyre42]

Thank you for solving an argument I was having with my dad intermittently for ~6months. He's Polish, and he was telling me that I should look for the seeds and grow some "Black Cranberries" which he was insisting are an American fruit. I thought he might have meant blackcurrant since the plants are kinda similar but he said it wasn't, but there's no such thing as black cranberries. Now I get that what he meant was Aronia.

[@cerberaodollam]

Hellothere. Polak, wegier, dva bratanki, am I right?

[@okumabear]

Thumbleberries filled with a lil bit of softened and sweetened cream cheese is INSANELY good.

[@homesteadgamer1257]

My God that sounds amazing. Like dates almost.

[@monhi64]

@@homesteadgamer1257they’re pretty good, we have a bunch on my property. Taste pretty similar any raspberry or blackberry but maybe a little sour and a bunch of seeds. I have no idea how they got on a list of the weirdest fruits though because they’re one of the least weird wild growing fruits I can think of

[@kushpaladin]

i do that with raspberries, i stuff the inside with yogurt lol

[@ryanchampney2637]

I live in NH and know where alot of thimble berries grow wild. They're so freaking good

[@landonstenersen3401]

Ohh that sounds good

[@caseysavant4527]

First time watching, very entertaining and informative. Love learning about different things from around the world. Also love your T- shirt in this episode.

[@jocobrat]

I love this so much!!! THANK YOU!!! We have tons of beautiful, huge hedge trees on my property. I wanted to tell you many, many people I know including myself and my family STILL use hedge tree branches as fence posts! Man it is the hardest, most rot resistant wood I've personally ever encountered so they indeed do make incredible fence posts. We burn branches we've trimmed or that have blown down in our fun firepit outside & it kicks some serious heat. Amazing heritage tree. Thanks for bringing it up! I did also watch your video dedicated to the hedge apples as well. We all swear they keep bugs away & toss fresh ones around our garage & basement each fall😂 Thanks so much for your educational & fun videos🎉

[@jocobrat]

I also watched your cloudberry video😂 I absolutely LOVE your videos & exploration so very much😊

[@jcb1066]

As a fruit enthusiast i was really happy to discover this channel. I actually have 5 of these growing in my yard ( pawpaws, mayapples, maypops, thimbleberry and spicebush. )

[@perfid-deject2027]

Fruit gang, makes you feel like it's 1969 peace movement when you grow rare fruit, but you're also an Idian, but you're also spiritually ascended, but also... Well... I'm insanely mentally ill sometimes but that's not my problem.

[@katiegustafson6765]

I have the paw paws and persimmon!

[@yeezet4592]

Been growing maypops since the 90s. Very easy to grow. They're aren't any commercially available named varieties so I have been breeding for the last few years. I've mostly been breeding fro productivity and size. My record plant was 33' tall. I've propogated it twice and had similar results.

[@mkjohnson7826]

You might be able to make money by selling Seeds or graphs. Not sure what would be the best way to grow. There seems to be more people than ever looking for new varieties to grow.

[@ChannelAbundantLife]

Yeah let me know if you start selling cuttings!

[@georgiarosenlund4302]

I'd also be interested

[@dwayneandrews2059]

Very informative and entertaining. Can relate, being a frog nerd for over 40+ years. Everything is connected and the more you learn about a specific topic (plant, animal, etc.) you realize you learning information you had no intention when you embarked on the initial journey. I have assimilated so much by studying/researching/keeping 1 species versus what I learned in school/college. Just learned more about native fruit in U.S. just by watching you vid. Thanks buddy.

[@IsmailAbdulMusic]

Paw Paw fruit grows here in Michigan. I know where a lot of Paw paw fruit trees are along the Clinton River trail. I have a strong allergic reaction to Paw paw fruit for some reason. I blended paw paw up in smoothie machine

[@jayolovitt5969]

Living in Australia it has always kinda depressed me that we don’t widely eat *any* of the native plants and even eating things like kangaroo meat are a bit of a fringe phenomenon. I mean I can name about five native plant food sources (and I’ve tried four of them) but realistically there are so many more. Indigenous people still would consume these plants and know traditional cooking and preparation methods but it’s like not a single bit of that knowledge has been disseminated in the wider population. *if anyone reading this thinks I’m wrong GOOD! I would love to be proven wrong on this subject, and please tell me what native plants you eat, grow, forage etc regularly.

[@garrettsgardenplants9818]

I am growing a few different "Kangaroo Apples" here in the United States. They seem to hybridize easily. Some species are tolerant to salt, wet soil, dry soil, shade. Seems like it would make a decent crop, don't know why more people grow it.

[@kylenevel8809]

Me and my family would always eat the north American passion fruit mentioned in the video and prickly pear cactus fruit. I live in Arizona though so there isn't much fruit growing in this arid hellscape. I agree that native fruit and vegetables should be cultivated and consumed.

[@anotherhuman8211]

@@kylenevel8809 You can process the seed/pod of a few palo verdes(blue and foothills), and ironwood(olneya tesota). You can go to riparian-oasis parks and forage for them. For mesquites, you should watch the mesquite video he did.

[@damonroberts7372]

It's easy to forget macadamias are Australian natives. Also, a lot of lemon-flavoured things are actually made with limonene extracted from the leaves of Australia's Lemon Myrtle (Backhousia citriodora) instead of lemon peel, because the process is more cost-effective industrially.

[@josephcooper5836]

@@kylenevel8809 wolf berries and lots of different cactus fruit besides prickly pear (including many non native ones which are common in yards/landscaping). I think there are a few other kinds of wild berries too.

[@Peckerwood-502]

My wife questions me whenever we go to the supermarket or farmers market and I buy a bunch of different things I’ve never even heard of. I’ve found some really great flavors. The funny thing is that she absolutely loves fruit and vegetables but refuses to try anything new, or if she doesn’t like the way it looks. She doesn’t know what she’s missing, but that’s okay, more for me. Thanks for the great videos and info. Safe travels and good hunting.

[@livinglifeleona]

I do this too 😂 any new fruit is fair a game and I make my whole family try it. I’ll buy maybe 2 fruits and cut them up so if we don’t like it I haven’t wasted too much money.

[@ZeFroz3n0ne907]

I live in Alaska and we have those thimble berries, as well as raspberries growing in our yard, quite delicious. Finally got a large amount of low-bush blueberries as well! Fantastic video! Got my sub!

[@myeyeswentdeaf6213]

That is so awsome! Thanks fruit nerd! 😁 I was born and raised in NYC and still here 45 years later, so I rarely ever get to eat these fruits and things that’s not so common. I’ve never even seen or heard of any of the fruits on this list. Once in a while I see some things at farmers markets that idk what it is, but now I’m gonna start seeking out these weird fruits.

[@betsyadams9670]

My neighbors had an Osage orange tree when we were little in California. We were told it was poisonous. We never ate them but used them as soft balls. But we did enjoy their tamarind and pomegranate trees.

[@hermeticmoon8448]

Have these growing in bergen County nj at the post office.... I been trying to figure out what it was

[@katharinetheresa4842]

Same here in northeastern Oklahoma.

[@Verlisify]

I like the (I tried them) since pretty much every Top 10 is fake from copying articles and not actually tasting them

[@WeirdExplorer]

stolen footage, copied information, fake photoshopped thumbnnail, 5 million views. Its infuriating.

[@LovelyLori193]

don't you get mad when people say cracker lmao

[@Verlisify]

@@LovelyLori193 never

[@Verlisify]

@@WeirdExplorer Bullshit wins in today's algorithm

[@mannurse7421]

@@WeirdExplorer lol I'm sure a few will come along and steal this list soon

[@timothyholly1289]

I live in Texas and have tried the flower of the yucca plant. It's tasted like soap and flower, but still fun to try out. Perhaps next year I can try cooking the petals

[@stephenbenner4353]

There was an osage orange tree where I grew up, but I always thought they were poisonous, so I never tried them. I was one for trying all kinds of edible wild plants too.

[@MichalBergseth-AmitopiaTV]

Cloudberry is eaten as a Christmas dessert in Norway. You eat it together with white cream or some likes to pour high concentrated fat milk on them. We also eat kromkake Christmas crackercake with it too. Cloudberries can be found in the Norwegian mountains. They are hard to find, and that's why they cost a lot in the stores too.

[@brontome]

i had no idea it is native to the US. I allways had it when visiting firends in Narvik

[@mintyrainbow6994]

My friend made kromkake for all of his friends for Christmas one year. He did it because he was a poor college student and couldn't afford to buy presents, and also he'd learned how to make it from his grandmother. After that, he was never so poor as that ever again, which is kind of sad, it's been many years and he's never made it again. :(

[@jamesrichards2720]

7:59 I've found this berry and eaten it while I've gone on hikes near where I live. I thought it was a wild raspberry. Cool to learn it is called a thimbleberry.

[@MrChristianDT]

If you're in the east, we don't have wild red raspberries as far north as Thimbleberries grow. Ours are black. They're smaller than the blackberries & hollow on top, plus often more of a dark purple color than straight black.

[@FG-ww8rc]

@Rachel Milt salmon berries are a different thing, but at least where I'm from in Canada, we call thimble berries salmon berries too

[@amethystleopard]

I always thought they were mulberries

[@MrChristianDT]

@@amethystleopard Not unless it grew on a tree.

[@earthwyrm6756]

We also have a non-native red raspberry that has spread in the mid-Atlantic. It is called wineberry. It has fuzzy red brambles (with hairs and thorns). A key ID feature is it has an orange base that you see when removing the berry. Also, not good as TP since the leaf has a row of spines down the back!

[@Orion_5764]

The last minute of the video definitely earned my subscription. I love the personality and knowledgeability that you bring the video

[@robohippy]

Once it was discovered, the Osage spread rapidly, and pretty much all around the world. For fence posts, the old farmers would say "black locust fence posts will wear out one fence post hole, osage will wear out 2'. It spread very quickly across the US. The wagon trains would plant them along all the trails. The wood made excellent wheel spokes. And of course, the Bow wood, some times called Bodark, from French bois de arc. Common for fence lines as well, and corner property marker. I am like you with fruit, only I like wood.....

[@wenn9366]

For getting rid of insects and spiders, you scatter Osage oranges around your the outside of your house. Inside, you put the WHOLE fruit into a paper bag, set it in a corner of a room, and let it dry out. It doesn't rot - it gets hard. While drying, it releases a chemical that works sort of like deet to repel insects. On the years I forget to scatter them around my porch, we will have a ton of spiders during the summer, but on years I remember them, we have almost zero spiders.

[@KronosIV]

Paw Paw beer has been brewed by Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio breweries and is very special. I'd probably rather have the fruit but it is very unique.

[@standingbear998]

beer, another word that has lost it's meaning and applied all kinds of concoctions.

[@tommunyon2874]

I found a complex thorn on a hedgeapple that was pyramidal like a Christmas tree. Just tried cactus fruit (prickly pear) for the first time. Although I saw prickly pear candy sold at tourist traps in Santa Fe during my childhood years, I never saw the actual prickly pear offered for sale.

[@KimberRose16]

Just found your channel and I gotta say, I love it! You’ve got an awesome vibe and I love what you’re about!

[@AngryAlfonse]

As someone from Missouri and who has been to pretty much every state on the Eastern half of the US, I've been aware of pawpaws my entire life and somehow never had one. I'll have to grab one next time I'm at a farmer's market. I think I've also seen them at our Apple Butter Festival.

[@KyleTheShaman]

I found a nice pawpaw patch on a nature preserve just north of Kansas City. The trees scatter the understory along most of the trails but they aren’t quite big enough or maybe don’t get enough sunlight to produce fruit. There is one secluded area that’s a little bit off the trail right by a stream and that’s where I found the largest pawpaw trees I’ve ever seen! They get loaded with fruits around September/October. I call it the pawpaw grove

[@AnyMotoUSA]

I'm always on the lookout for these round September and October. My patch in Kansas can produce hundreds of pounds of large sweet fruits if you catch them at the right time of year

[@ajmentel2453]

@@KyleTheShaman pawpaws actually are super shade tolerant trees especially in their youth, you may be right that they're not getting enough sunlight to make fruit right now but their evolution strategy essentially boils down to "grow in the shade of a large tree and wait for it to get old and let sunlight release to it later," I'm planting pawpaws in the shade of a giant ash on my property that's on its way out so that there's a nice thicket there in the future :)

[@KyleTheShaman]

@AJ Mentel , I agree that’s what I’ve observed from what the location I mentioned. the paw paw trees on the edge of clearings in dappled shade, or the larger trees which can reach the canopy bear fruit. The young trees are very prevalent in the shady understory, but I think they are waiting their turn for a large shade tree to fall and take advantage of the opportunity before they can fruit.

[@ClaytonChristopherHarbison]

There are some in some of the wilderness areas around Columbia, but the largest patch I've seen is south of Van Buren at Big Springs.

[@ashleyhavoc1940]

The hedge apple (osage) doesn't repel ALL insects, but its particularly good for spiders. I've witnessed the Wolf (North American tarantula), black widow, and yellow writing spiders fleeing areas where we've placed the cut open portions. Weve used them for generations...

[@9877joseph]

That's what I grew up calling them!

[@egobrain6826]

Yes, I grew up gathering them with my Grandpa to put around their house.

[@John_the_Paul]

Spiders aren’t even insects, I think whoever advertised it as repellant got their bug types mixed up

[@jlee438]

its a old wives tale.... ive debunked it i put 12 hedge apples in a small shed n still had a crap ton of spiders... mind u it was a 8 x 10 shed

[@tayl0124]

@@jlee438 I've seen spiders crawling on them at the grocery store we sold them at.

[@carlapowell4864]

Amazing, I’m learning to subsistence live, and your channel is exactly what I was looking for education wise thank you

[@bigchungo6443]

Super happy to see thimble berries here! I grew up loving them and they're still my favorite berry.

[@kevind4383]

Jared, you should get in touch with Matt and Megan from Wanderlust and ask them about the Osoberry. Osoberry is a tiny little stone fruit native to the PNW west of the Cascade range (in fact, I think it's one of the few edible fruits that's actually native to the area). I spent most of my life being completely ignorant to the existence of these things and as soon as I identified them, I started spotting them everywhere. It's weird how that works... "were these always here like this?"

[@jbeargrr]

Osoberries are delicious! There were some growing near a house I rented in Seattle. I lived there several years, and picked and ate osoberries every year.

[@Tenko72]

I heard of pawpaws, but I never knew they were that big! I never knew American persimmons were different from the hachiya and fuyu either.

[@3DJapan]

The channel Emmy Made did a video on Pawpaws.

[@meyokkob458]

I found a paw paw tree in franklin tn….I ate it and it was excellent

[@timothyharris1125]

I have PawPaw trees. These things are all over Ohio in the woods.

[@NikhillRao27]

Thimbleberries grow *everywhere* in my hometown and you can see them at any roadside in late summer. It's a big local specialty with people selling jams and stuff.

[@georgedunkelberg5004]

FOUND IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. ALSO WINTER GREEN (A PITHY RED BERRIES) GROWING TIGHT TO THE GROUND.

[@jasonespinoza6372]

Maybe it wasn't just about the fruit, but rather the experiences you gained along the way *tears up* its so beautiful

[@Equivocal-squiggle]

It amazes me that I've been watching this channel for 3-4 years and when you publish these top ten videos, I still discover new fruits from old videos that I missed. This video really brightened my day and as always, it makes me excited to buy my own land because I'm going to start collecting interesting and rare plants. Jared, once I'm established in Maine, you and your friends and family will be welcome! 😊❤️

[@k1m6a11]

OK first of all, your opening defense of "weird" was fierce and adorable, and we need more of that! Second, the homage to Troy McClure's "juice loosener" was sublime. But honestly, if you're going to make fruit maps of America including Alaska, would it be too much trouble to include your Canadian devotees in the delicious red circles? Or did all the best fruit skip us on the way north? Great video though! Ever thine.

[@cubicpsychotic5616]

As a fellow Canadian I agree with all of this

[@anitat9727]

Yes please

[@mindyenglish5305]

As not a Canadian, yes please. This is the first video I've seen from this guy. Now I gotta go binge. Maps would be awesome.

[@zurgishsweet4895]

As a Canadian living in the Thousand Islands, many of the native plant life that grows in Northern New York, can be found in my area as well. You just need good eyes to spot them in forested areas, or grow your own versions of these plants in your home garden, if you are able.

[@StillIntoBeetles]

My great grandmother who was part Cherokee used to tell my grandma about Paw Paw trees and she would go on to tell my mom, I’ve only seen about 3 Paw Paw trees in person and I’ve seen the fruit once while it was rotting so it’s interesting to hear about how delicious they sound! I’ll have to try and find one of the trees again and wait for the fruit to ripen before someone else collects them

[@erictaylor5462]

I saw a video of an American woman staying in Italy on vacation. She was really loving the beauty of the countryside, the fresh air and even the ability to eat olives fresh off the tree. She very quickly found out why eating fresh olives is a once in a lifetime experience. There is a reason olives were cultivated for thousands of years before people tried processing the fruit to eat the olives directly.

[@danielhurst8863]

I've eaten them all, except for mayapple, because we were taught they were poisonous. You may want to look into the mayhaw, not related at all, which grows in the South and is mostly used to make very delicious jelly, plus, no chance of getting poisoned. Also, the people of Sápmi generally considered the term lapland to be a derogatory term.

[@pelayo341]

And? It's not their land

[@dontimberman5493]

We are trying to do a orchard of “native” fruit trees. This gives us some good ideas! Thank you. I grew up in NM and never had Yucca fruit. I’m a little upset about it.

[@discgolfcasados2024]

My family has lived here in New Mexico since the 1500's and I never knew or heard of the pods being edible. It must be a certain time of year. I'm gonna ask around and see if any of the elders or my Native friends know anything about it. I was super surprised seeing how delicious it looked and will definitely be checking out those yuccas after they flower.

[@dontimberman5493]

@@discgolfcasados2024 right! I had many friends who families were just like yours figured someone would’ve said some thing. At least my friends that were Navajo. But then maybe they assumed I knew. 🤷‍♂️

[@JohnSheffield1963]

What About Mayhaw? My parent's came from the Georgia range of the plant and their hometown has one of the Mayhaw festivals. Unfortunately the last we got was far too sweet.

[@dontimberman5493]

@@JohnSheffield1963 we are actually looking at that.

[@Catlily5]

I knew you could make soap out of yucca root but never knew you could eat the fruit!

[@chrisspatz8811]

Thanks for the great info.! I’m excited to try some of these!

[@PeterVonDanczk]

Aronia (chokeberry) is indeed prevalent in Europe. My dad made homemade wine from it. I've called it "irony wine" (wordplay on "Aronia wine") because it was sour and bitter at the same time. At some point, my dad stopped making switching to dogwood liquor.

[@donaldhitman6724]

I've been picking thimble berries in NH and vt my whole life and really thought they were wild raspberries. They always seemed to grow around blackberries which are my favorite. I got lucky and had a house beside an abandoned blueberry farm in Bath,NH and would mow in-between the rows and have fresh berries all season. To keep thimble berries we would freeze on a cookie sheet before bagging and had wild berries all year for many years. And I ended up growing strawberrys. Started with 6 plants and learned fast they run and my garden became my strawberry patch and made a new garden beside it.. well worth it.. Sure miss that house for the berries.

[@jordansjournal1324]

As a gardener I'm obsessed with this channel

[@AdirondackRuby]

I love pawpaw! A friend gave me some. It had been growing for a long time in her parents yard. They had no idea what it was. Took YEARS to finally put out fruit. I collected the seeds from the few pawpaw I ate, but don't have the space to plant them yet. (I live in Upstate NY)

[@dahveed284]

My ex father-in-law used to grow a fruit he called Mayhaw. It grows in marshy wetlands in Louisiana. He made a jam out of it. I have seen the jam being sold in farmer's markets occasionally.

[@lacewinglml]

I remember running into a rare fruit I was told was "Bush fig" They are very good, and made some of the best jam.. thimble berries, huckleberry, salmon berry.. so many wonderful native fruits in the USA

[@marialiyubman]

Try making aronia-berry kombucha. I did it with blueberry and elderberry. The kombucha is slightly sweet and it adds the sweetness to the boring, or tart berries (like blueberries), and the berry gives the kombucha a fruity flavor. It’s my favorite flavor of homemade kombucha. And you can’t taste the 1% alcohol.

[@WeirdExplorer]

Great idea

[@AlissaSss23]

WOW, these fruits are amazing! Thank you for this video, I never saw these fruits before!

[@d.d.d.a.a.a.n.n.n]

I love thimbleberries! Not everyone likes them, but I love how seedy and crunchy they are, and I always look for them when hiking along trails

[@symphonyofpaint]

I grew up on my grandparents (plant) nursery in Ohio. Along the edge of the property, we had these weird green things that we couldn't eat. Grandma told me they were called Monkey brains. Wood was very very hard as I recall and had thorns I think. Later on, I learned about the Osage orange and realized that's what they are. Likely that property was originally a farm in the early 1900s and they used that tree as a hedge. Pretty neat.

[@MustObeyTheRules]

Yep. Osage is an amazing tree. You really only find it, in the northern Midwest states, in fence rows that people intentionally planted century’s ago. The wood is insanely hard, strong and resistant to rot. Posts made from the wood can last centuries unlike most other North American woods that become weak after less than a decade of exposure to the elements.

[@Willowtree82]

we always called them crab apples

[@Trinsie]

We had these all over the woods where I lived in southern Missouri when I was growing up. We called them Horse Apples. I had never heard of any part of them being edible before though and we just ignored them.

[@Banapis]

Osage oranges are here in Tennessee as well. We have always called them hedge apples. I had no idea they were edible either, although the horses love them.

[@robinbrannan5932]

@@Banapis I'm from southeastern Ohio and we call them hedge apples here too. I've use them around the perimeter of my home to keep vermin out. Critters do. It like the sticky interior of the fruit and others do not like the vapors put out by the fruit when cut open.

[@amethystleopard]

Cloudberries are also known as bake apples, and grow in the Atlantic provinces, and are especially abundant all over Newfoundland. Newfoundland and Labrador are also home to squashberries. These are deep red berries, from which a luscious red jelly is made. It is served like cranberry sauce, but has a more complex flavor. The drawback? The jelly smells like dirty socks when you open the jar

[@wishingonthemoon1]

I had no clue thimble berries were different than raspberries. I would always talk about how wild raspberries that I got near our New York summer house on Lake Ontario were better… I feel blessed to have tried them, they’re sooo tasty!

[@mrcyde]

This is the first time I've seen your channel. I really enjoy your content. You've found a great niche and present very well. I'm subscribing.

[@Maxaldojo]

These are great! In eastern Ohio, I've found and consumed the pawpaw, thimble berry, mayapple (only one or two a year and only the whiteish ones!) and spicebush (not my favorite, kind of turpentiny pepper). Autumn olive (not native and pretty invasive) is pretty common and very tasty, though also has a big seed versus flesh, so another one good jam. Osage orange, though... Well done. I like the child learning aspect... Haven't found persimmon, maypop, cloudberry. I've seen yucca plants as an ornamental, but haven't thought about harvesting the fruit.

[@WeirdExplorer]

Ohio is great for rare native fruit

[@mannurse7421]

I have mayapple that grows on my land but I'm scurred

[@Unsensitive]

Central/southern Ohio here. Never find ripe mayapples, always green or gone... But will have to look harder. Never seen a cloudberry, and never considered yucca, but have seen it. Osage orange is not something I'd ever considered eating, though it makes for great throwing across the road at a target tree :). It's heartwood is very pretty too. I've ejoyed persimmons, pawpaw, maypop, and spicebush. My favorites not listed today • service or saskatoon berry • autumn olive • ground cherry • elderberry Guess they're not weird enough!

[@MrChristianDT]

I got lucky with some Mayapples last year. They were growing along a railway line, under some bushes. I think it was too much in the open for the animals to risk it, so they left a few alone down there. I guess the plant produces an irritant oil similar to poison ivy, but you collect the fruit in August, when the plant begins dying, & is no longer producing those oils. Plus, you wouldn't eat the skin. From Northeast Ohio. So far, I've tried wild strawberries, chokecherries, nannyberries, mulberry, Mayapple, haws, black raspberry, blackberry & dewberry. We also have Juniper berries, a small patch of native wild roses, hickory nuts, butternut, hazelnuts & a handful of other edibles I haven't tried yet. Also been planting some other natives lately- blueberry, ground cherry, deerberry, persimmon, cranberry, bearberry, chokeberry, strawberry bite, black cherry, Hackberry, Kentucky Coffeetree, etc- so we'll see what comes of all that over the next few months.

[@Maxaldojo]

@@mannurse7421 I get it. I have only tried the whitish ones and usually find a few "ripe" ones in large patches that hadn't been thoroughly rooted through or isolated plants that are just missed. I usually chomp into it and then spit out the seeds. Worth a taste of you find one. When I first tried autumn olive, my friend was sceptical and said, "We have an hour walk to get back here... If you are still alive and not puking your guts out, I'll give them a try." And, he did...

[@StuffandThings_]

Finally some stuff that I'm actually growing! Many of these are actually available to buy in various nurseries, and have done relatively well in western Washington. I'm hoping that I'll begin to be able to eat some of these fruits pretty soon.

[@farmladyforever]

A few other fruits native to the US that we use are elderberry, black haw and sumac. Black haws produce small drupes and are ripe in the late fall to early winter. Like a number of others featured in this video, they need to blet (basically become overripe and soft) before they're ready to eat. We make jam with these and it's lovely. Sumac is used as a spice in southern Asian countries, but during the colonial period of the US, it was used to make a drink similar to lemonade. It secretes a sour acid on the outside, so harvest is best done if it hasn't rained in a while. We make jelly using it, but are working on processing it as a spice Elderberries are easy to grow and easy to process. We have both wild and commercially developed plants. It's pretty obvious how to use the berries, but the flowers are used in brewing and as a flavoring for confections.

[@megasocky]

Love your videos as I started noticing these fruits after moving to the U.S. recently found paw paws at a farmers market in Oregon!

[@JonalynH]

Thimble berries were a super fun treat we would find while hiking in Oregon, want a fun outdoor activity the whole family will love find a guide, or a book and stroll down a hiking trail looking for edibles. Usually the lesser known trails offer the best gifts. Ask locals is also a good way to find gifts.

[@acme_tnt8741]

I lived in Oregon for a couple years. I really loved the availibility of the the " pick your own fruit" berry farms. That is where I discovered Huckleberry, and Marion Berry. I worked as an arborist and was amazed how well Blackberries take over areas that were disturbed then not maintained. I'm from Ohio and Blackberries are very common here but they don't grow like trees lol. Also Hazel Nut trees grow here but not like they do out there. My employer sent me to a job with instructions to remove a row of "Filbert" trees and their saplings from a customers property line. I told my boss that I hadn't ever seen a Filbert tree. He said thet the home owner would point out the trees needing removal. The home ow er showed me a row of Hazelnuts and I told her that they were. She replied with "Yeah I know." Lol I didn't but now I do. Also I was so cool buying smoked Salmon from the Natives when I worked closer to the coast.

[@sgtrock68]

I've been trying to identify a fruit I encountered on the Yucatan Peninsula, when I was a kid. According to locals stories it's one of those fruits that makes the monkeys drunk. While the fruit is still in the tree it is about the size of a golfball or a pingpong ball. It has a thin, hard, leathery, shell or peel. The fruit has the color, texture, and firmness of ripe Cantaloupe. I think it also tasted like super sweet Cantaloupe, but that memory is tougher to recall. They looked like yellow eyeballs and the Spanish name fore them might have referenced that. I was only 13 at the time (1984) but I remember fighting tree climbing goats, iguanas, and waves butterflies for the eyeball fruit. I was probably trying to see if they actually made you drunk. Stick me in the wilderness and I'd still figure out how to get in trouble, lol! I'm thinking that to get the drunk part of the story you might have to be willing to eat the rotten ones off the ground.

[@M3GAM0LLY]

Quenepas?

[@samsmom1491]

It could be a Cape Gooseberry or Pineapple Ground Cherry or Craboo (Nance in Spanish). My money's on the Nance.

[@caiusmadison2996]

@@M3GAM0LLY I'm gonna say most who experience this fruit, get lost thinking its name containing lime or referring to limes, due to its appearance, are what causes people to think these aren't tasty to directly eat. They are amazing, actually. I remember the cruise I took with family in 95', we where around the Carribean, and my friend on that cruise was a young Spanish youth. He showed these to my brother and I and said they where his favorite thing about returning home. I now wondered for years what these where. These are what those where, after careful reading and comparison to memory.

[@FrozEnbyWolf150]

@@samsmom1491 Cape Gooseberries are actually sold in farmer's markets and stores like Whole Foods, though I prefer not to shop there. They're nightshades, so they're related to tomatoes and goji berries, and I'm hoping they grow in the same conditions as my tomatoes. They're not the same as the gooseberries that are perennial to zone 7 where I live, but they can still be grown as an annual, which I'm doing now with seeds I saved from a batch. The ones I originally got the seeds from were slightly smaller than grape tomatoes.

[@vincer7824]

Sounds like Quenepas to me. Pretty popular in Puerto Rico and they sell them in NYC during the summer. The skin is more of a rind/shell, the pulp is orange/yellow and soft while being quite fibrous. It may sound gross but the pulp always reminds me of a moist fur texture. Very large pit. Like 80% if it's total size is a round pale pit. Definitely a unique fruit, nothing else quite like it from what I've come across.

[@damiandeza2761]

This is so cool, i never knew someone so fanatic of tasting all of the weird fruits in the world like me! You are awesome! A month ago i went to Ushuaia to try wild apples and "pan de indio", i also wanted to try calafate berries but for that i would have to go in november

[@tinabrondel]

I have several persimmon trees on my property. I pick them...mostly off the ground when they are really ripe. I wash them then squeeze them through a ricer. I freeze it and then use it to make persimmon bread and cookies. It's something I give out at Christmas. Another of my favorite fruits is wild gooseberries, as a matter of fact, I just had two slices of wild gooseberry pie last night. So good! My grandpa used to grow and sell tame gooseberries.

[@trimiskel9909]

I'm fairly positive I've seen cloudberries grow out here in Portland. The first time I came here I stayed at a hotel just outside of PDX and encountered a bunch of plants growing a single fruit that looked exactly like cloudberries. Later that day I would see some homeless dude frolicking up the street and would pick these berries, eat them, then continue onto his adventure.

[@cyanyoshida2650]

Those may have been salmon berries, which look like orange blackberries. Salmon berries are native to the Pacific Northwest.

[@darriendastar3941]

Again, utterly fascinating. I want to try all of those fruits and berries now. Also, the short scenes of Lapland at the end were just gorgeous - this is why it's always watching your videos right to the end. Oh, and the Divine t-shirt has me consumed with envy. All round, many thanks, as usual.

[@kittymcnekonuggets]

This is so interesting… I have oral allergy syndrome so I can’t eat fruits or veggies raw but when I was a kid, I didn’t have any problems. Honeydew was easily my favorite fruit to eat but it’s been so long that I don’t remember the taste anymore. I don’t really deal with fruits anymore so when this vid popped up in my recommended, it made me think of something- when I was a kid in summer camp, we went walking around through some part of a bushy area (I don’t remember a lot of trees so I don’t think it was a forest) and I saw a bush-like plant along the way that had these things growing on it that at first glance looked like big green tomatoes but when I picked it off, it was pretty solid and I don’t think it felt like a tomato and it couldn’t have been an apple. I was really curious about it and wanted to take it home and find out what it was but the other kids kinda told on me and the counselor got mad at me and told me to get rid of it ☹️ I still don’t know what it was. I believe we went somewhere within my part of the south eastern part of PA. Does anyone here know what it was??

[@StatusFX3]

I live in Cedar Creek, Texas (30 minutes southeast of Austin) and my back yard has dozens of Tx Persimmon trees in it. Looking forward to canning this years harvest for the first time! 🌱💚

[@blackletter2591]

It seems like fruits that remained 'local indigenous' tend to have a few things in common: (pick 2 or 3) 1. look scary on the outside, with thorns or slime etc, or tries to look like a spider 2. look even scarier on the inside, with parts resembling something you'd see at an autopsy 3. very poor shelf life ie may not make it back to the car 4. vile smell (rotting flesh is the default), which you have to overcome to get it in your mouth 5. has some poisonous component which you have to deal with before consumption 6. is only edible for a couple of days in its lifecycle 7. is heavily defended by the host plant 8. very difficult to determine if it is ripe 9. Grow in the most inaccessible locations

[@absalomdraconis]

There's one missing from your list: 10: Fragile, so is easily damaged in shipping.

[@absalomdraconis]

An example is the Paw-paw: it falls afoul of 3, 5 (though in a different way- if you eat _too much_ then you have problems) and 10.

[@WendyJoJohnston]

When I lived on Kodiak Island I had a secret blueberry patch, and I was delighted to find that cloudberries grew all around them. I searched out a tidy amount, and then took a break and ate them slowly, enjoying the scenery and listening for bears!

[@Kevinthesnail]

So cool! We have thimbleberries in Massachusetts I guess. I remember putting what I thought was wild raspberries on my fingers when I was a kid. They still grow near my house. I love this channel. When I was little we didn’t have much money but my mom always bought weird or different fruit when she saw it for us to try. I do this now with my own daughter.

[@hepolaroth]

We had a very large Osage Orange at the edge of our previous home in MI. The year before we left, a woman we dud not know, stopped & asked if she could have as many as we were willing to give her. She said her family used them to rid their homes of spiders! The wood if the tree was a beautiful, glowing orange color as the setting sun set it.

[@OfficiallySnek]

I live close to Minnesota, and my family does a lot of foraging and hiking. I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for cloudberries this year! Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[@anyascelticcreations]

My family foraged in Wisconsin and Michigan. 😊 I seem to remember seeing them there. But I don't remember tasting that, so I must have not known what they were.

[@avlinrbdig5715]

@@anyascelticcreations we usually go in pairs. they often grow in swamps and you might fall down and get stuck lmao

[@anyascelticcreations]

@@avlinrbdig5715 Yeah, I'm done foraging in marshes or swamps. The one and only time I harvested cattail pollen I waded in the mucky water to get to them. I came out of the water with some kind of very strange bites all over my legs. Big purple sploches that itched like mad and stayed for weeks. I've never stuck a toe in mucky water again. Lol

[@avlinrbdig5715]

@@anyascelticcreations might be a lot of weird bugs if you are going bareback into the quagmire... I dont know what you call them, but we have a thing called waders.. used by salmon fishers and others they are like a merger of long waterproof boots and pants in one. They are awesome for many things. However, it isnt allways easy to know how deep you'll sink tho. Long waterproof boots will help alot too, but not for wading through the quagmire. It is allways smart to have some extra "area" of dry boot to protect in case you suddenly sink unexpectedly deep.. instead of spending all the real-estate all at once and gambling

[@avlinrbdig5715]

Once my grandmother was picking cloudberries she unexpectedly dropped into the quagmire and got stuck up to her shoulders. Was lucky to have my aunt pull her out :D

[@alanhyt79]

Thimbleberries: add the Olympic Peninsula of Washington to its range. I grew up with them in Forks. We had a wild one growing next to the garage. They are mostly seeds and not all that tasty, IMO.

[@jamesrichards2720]

The ones I tried were smooth and didn't notice the seeds as I ate them.

[@brandon9172]

Damn, must be a regional variety or something then? The seeds on the ones here aren't very noticable, not anymore than other brambles. They're like a sweeter softer raspberry.

[@EmpressLori1111]

Yeah we have them on Vancouver Island, they are soft and rather tasteless, with lots of tiny seeds. I prefer raspberries. Thimbleberries are kind of like eating paper in flavour.

[@angiealexis3093]

Thank you, love your vid. Love your sense of humor! You are a good teacher 🙂

[@WeirdExplorer]

Thank you! 😃

[@Bibitybopitybacon]

My grandmother had an Osage Orange tree in her backyard When i was a child and I had no idea what it was all this time!! Thanks for the video and an answer long sought!

[@JTMusicbox]

Great compilation! Osage orange is definitely the weirdest fruit I’ve ever come across in person. They look like something from an alien planet.

[@Star-dj1kw]

Yes, and hedge apples are sticky as heck!

[@DeathMetalDerf]

Dude, you've definitely inspired my buddy Jeff and me to buy tons of tropical fruit (usually from Miami Fruit, or at Wegman's or the local farmer's market) and we've discovered that buying and discussing fruit is a hobby we both really enjoy. And I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't searched for "weird fruit" on KZbin and found you! Thanks so much, Jared!

[@WeirdExplorer]

Glad to hear that!

[@tiesiogieva6023]

In Lithuania, it was widespread to have chokeberries in the garden for a very long time. Now it is not so popular cause we don't can apples and pears too much these days. They dry your mouth and color your mouth but have distinctive flavor and color. We use them when we can fruit like apples and pears to bring color to them. Also, we make vine out of them. Jams that are very stable for up to 6 months at room temperature. If mixed with other fruits it needs to be kept at 5-10 Celsius temperature and eaten quickly after you open a jar. We didn't have one in our garden but both of our neighbors did and did nothing with them for years. I remember years ago when I was maybe 17 i picked a whole bucket of it from my neighbor that thought I was crazy for bothering with them. I made a syrup out of it mixed with lemon juice and sugar, it was great to flavor water but I also used it to mix vodka and sprite. It was the bomb at the parties. lol I made 4 liters batch of it. It was the first thing gone from our cellar that year. Then next year I moved to the city and never attempted to repeat it again. I saw it was gone from my parent's neighbor's yard. It is not fashionable to have one anymore. Shame.

[@sethr.c1065]

One of my favorite pass-times is harvesting from my backyard. I don’t use pesticides or herbicides except occasionally around fences and walls, and there’s only a couple weeds I don’t tolerate, including dandelion and an incredibly annoying, inedible hitchhiker. I harvest the weeds to control them, mainly shepherd’s needle leaves (spicy, flavorful, tender greens), florida betony (watery, starchy white root, very fun to dig up), and occasionally assorted greens or elderberry. Bees of every form love the yard.

[@danielhaines8254]

As a forager in the US I LOVE seeing and learning about native edible plants!! Thank you :)

[@anyascelticcreations]

Same!

[@snood4743]

The woods right by my childhood home had a huge patch of mayapples. I loved seeing them pop up every year since the plants have a fun umbrella shape.

[@snood4743]

Ooh! There were also a few spicebushes there too. They mostly got crowded out by invasive bush honeysuckles unfortunately.

[@LittleBear-gq7he]

@11:00 thanks for solving one of the greatest mysteries of my life! I like in Southwest VA, and where I live there's a couple of these trees, there's one in my backyard, and one up at the top of the road where my mailbox sits. All my life me and my family never knew what they were or if they were eatable. I've always called them the brain fruit in my head, and very rarely have I ever seen a fresh one, usually only overripe and rotten.

[@williampatrickfurey]

The intro to this is exactly why I've said good things about you, it's literally what i see. Thank you. Also i had this thought before i had ever seen that this is going to somewhat answer a fruit question i had. Thank you for that too. Edit: (after watching more than just the intro when i had commented this) You've answered so many questions that i didn't even know/think i would have with this one video that i still don't know what to say other than your videos are some of the best I've ever seen. I've seen many and often enough it's a visual portion of research but i think it's maybe that your's has a better intention.

[@Bigandrewm]

Mulberries are pretty common in the wild here in Michigan. I made a juice out of them once, it was pretty interesting. The fruit by itself is simply sweet and tasty, but in juice form was actually slightly spicy.

[@phaedrapage4217]

I used to eat myself sick on mulberries every summer as a kid, and you could tell if they were in season by checking the soles of my feet. We still have mulberry trees in the yard but now I leave the berries for the birds.

[@ferretyluv]

We got a mulberry tree in my backyard. Very tasty.

[@georgedunkelberg5004]

Lived in Grand Ledge, Michigan. Wild Mulberries were tall and cursed ! by Oldsmobile, and other car owners, as Mulberries in bird droppings etched the Merry Oldsmobile hoods. "HOODALUMES" -birds?

[@rmt3589]

13:12 It 100% works. I go from 4 spiders a day, to one every few months. They're mostly rotten now, so starting to not work, but still working enough. It's like a magic spell!!! You put one in a room, and it cleans the bugs away. While I still see other bugs occasionally, as the house is old and has access to the outside, but very few spiders. (One tried to drop on my head the other day, so I know they're wearing off, but it's still better than the few times a month!) Didn't know there were so many names for Osage Orange. Definitely want to eat it now.

[@Happilymarrieddad]

I am in East Idaho, and we have thimble berries all over the forest and I've been trying to forage them for about 3 years now. Here, I have yet to find one that's not bland and mushy and I try to go every weekend to different places for months trying to get them when they are ripe. I really hope someday to get a good one. Also, I've been trying to cultivate cloudberries but have yet to have any success. Just thought I would share my experiences with the fruit mentioned in this video. Thanks for the content!