WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The unofficial national fruit of New Zealand isn't native to the country – it's South American. It isn't exclusively found in New Zealand. And it's not, perhaps surprisingly, the kiwi. It's the feijoa.
Known as pineapple guava elsewhere, the fruit — a green perfumed oval with a polarizing taste — can be purchased in California or Canberra. Yet no country has embraced the feijoa with quite the fervor or the fixation of New Zealanders.
Due to its short shelf life, New Zealand — a nation of thriving fruit exports — has never been able to spin the feijoa (pronounced fee-jo-ah) into a global brand, as growers have done with apples and kiwi. But during the brief span of weeks each year when the fruit is ripe, the country goes feijoa wild.
A backyard boom
The feijoa's allure comes partly from how it's acquired. In autumn, fallen fruit forms fragrant carpets beneath backyard trees and is swept into boxes, bags and buckets to be offered for free outside homes, in office breakrooms and on neighborhood Facebook groups. There's such abundance that some feijoa lovers take pride in never having paid for one.
''It's sort of non-commercialized. We turn up our noses at the idea of buying them in the shop,'' said Kate Evans, author of the book Feijoa: A Story of Obsession and Belonging. ''You just sort of expect to get them for free.''
In suburban Wellington, Diana Ward-Pickering said she had given away ''thousands'' of feijoas from her five backyard trees this season: in a box on the sidewalk, to neighbors, to coworkers, to her daughter's eyelash technician — in short, to any friend or stranger who wanted some.
On a recent Sunday, Ward-Pickering selected a feijoa from dozens on the ground, halved it with a spoon, and scooped the pale, creamy flesh into her mouth.
