Week .... Aww, Gee, I Don't Know... Week 15? - What in Rudolf's Name is a Monstera Deliciosa?

Hello fellow Ribbers (or is that "Showers"?),


I suspect that many of you are harbouring a food source that most of you may be unaware of. There is a ubiquitous house plant, commonly found luring hapless fools who frequent Bunnings and other nursery establishments with its wide, slitted, dark green leaves into buying them and neglecting them in their bath or bed rooms.


Yes, I admit that I too was one of those fools. I speak now from experience. When living as a lonesome bachelor, studying during the day and by night existing in a ponderously hazy state as a musician, I used to have a pet plant.  I didn't get her from Bunnings but ripped a bit of someone's fence on a late night stroll home. I stuck it in a pot and asked my lovely daughter Ruby, who couldn't have been much more than four years old at the time what I should call it. She replied "Planty". Obvious really.


And so it was. The withered green thing stuck in a black plastic 200mm pot filled with dirt from the backyard in the corner of my perpetually twilight bedroom was dubbed Planty. 


The good thing about this pet was how incredibly hardy it was. It managed to survive on the monthly water it got when I was spurned into a fit of dish and clothes washing, house cleaning and plant watering by a visit from my family. Hardly any water, no fertiliser, very little sun and not so much as a wet cloth or even a dusting in eighteen months. I wouldn't say she thrived but survived.


However, things looked up for Planty. As I moved, so did she. She moved in with Nessie at Mount Glorious for six months and enjoyed the cool climate and moist air; she moved to the Gap and was there in the corner of the lounge room when Toby was born; and eventually, when we finally made the shift to good old "Lofty Meadows", she went into fertile ground, under the cubby house. She certainly hasn't looked back. Cop a load of the size of her now!

A familiar looking plant to most....

The other thing that is great about Planty, or Monstera Deliciosa as the boffins would have us call her is that she fruits! You don't often see this in unwatered specimens stuck 200 mm black pots filled with backyard clay and stone placed in the corner of a perpetually twilight room. But given free range for their roots and some fertile and moist soil they produce quite heavily as you can see.

Is that a Monstera Deliciosa in your pocket or are you just....

This is what it looks like as it ripens in front of a jar of lemongrass tea... Note how the little hexagon like cells on the left hand side have lifted to reveal the soft flesh underneath.

This is what I look like as I set my ravenous fangs upon it!

It ripens sequentially from one end over the period of a week. The flesh has the consistency of a custard apple, if you have tried one of those. It tastes like .... well... Monstera Deliciosa. Some people call it the "Fruit Salad Plant", which I think is a cop out name that people use to describe any fruit with a more complex palette than a banana. It is shot through with little black "spines" that the flesh clings to and these prickly little bits can get stuck down the back of your throat. It is the same sensation that sometimes happens when someone has done a bodgy job of cutting a fresh pineapple.


It is a very peculiar fruit which some have said is poisonous! Arrggh! I hope not because I have scarfed quite a few now.  Maybe that's why there is blood in my stools! Just kidding! (Bit of a clue for the Inaugural Compendium of Lofty Meadows Cuisine Competition from a few posts ago).


I wouldn't say it has been a staple in my diet, but if there is food lying about the place I feel compelled to eat it.


Here's the weigh in:

Remember, spread the Showing Rib word and till next time, toodles.

Showing Rib