Florida native fruit perfectly suited for those in Lower Central and South Florida. The cocoplum fruit is small and has a large, edible pit. You can eat the pits raw or roasted, and most people say that they taste like almonds. An edible pit isn’t the norm for most plums (or plum-like) fruit. The pit of the Flatwoods plum, for instance, is poisonous because it contains cyanide.
The fruit itself has a mild flavor but an interesting texture – it’s sort of light and fluffy, like cotton candy. Because of their mild flavor and large pits, most people cook cocoplum down into a reduction and use that to make jelly instead of eating them raw.
Cocoplum fruit comes in dark and light varieties. The dark variety starts off pink and ripens to dark purple and the light variety ranges from cream to white to whitish pink. There are 2 cocoplum seasons in South Florida – one in late spring and another in early fall.
