Tzapotl: One name, many fruits

I've wondered why three seemingly unrelated fruits have related names: the white sapote, black sapote, and mamey sapote.

I found out the answer earlier this month when I visited the Fairchild Botanical Garden in Miami. I was lucky to visit when they had their fruit stand open, with produce from the garden's farm in Homestead.

John Mario was running the fruit stand and he's very knowledgeable about tropical fruits. He explained the origin of the name: sapote comes from the nahuatl word tzapotl, meaning a soft edible fruit. Apparently the name has been applied to many many fruits which are not botanically related, but all originated in Mexico or Central America.

Here's a picture of a nicely ripened black sapote I bought at Fairchild:

The black sapote is related to the persimmon. You can see a bit of the resemblance in the presence of the thingy where the stem attaches to the fruit - I think it's called an involucre.

I had never eaten a black sapote before, and it was excellent. John Mario told me some people call it the chocolate pudding fruit, which makes sense. Inside the slightly stiff green skin is a soft, black flesh, slightly sweet and definitely exotic. It had a nice mild coffee aftertaste. It's worth trying, if you can find one.