Scrumping for loquats

Some of my favourite fruits are loquats. I have fond memories from my teens of climbing loquat trees on my parents farm and gorging myself on the fruit. Since moving back into the city, it's been very hard for me to find them: although there are trees dotted around Melbourne, they have a short season and I haven't seen any greengrocers selling them.


So I was especially pleased when Mrs Impala found a tree overhanging a lane way not too far away, and last Saturday we went scrumping. We collected about two kilos of loquats. Yum!

For those who have never tried them, they are a little larger than cherries, yellow when ripe, with between one and four large seeds. They are mostly sweet, although the skin can be a little tart. The flesh itself has a flavour vaguely like a cross between lychee and cantelope.