Sapotaceae

Sapote family

Russet skins, salmon flesh — the Central American sapotes.

The family

Sapotaceae is the family the Mayans and Aztecs grew long before Europeans landed in Central America. Mamey sapote is its star — a torpedo-shaped fruit with rough brown skin and dense salmon-orange flesh that eats like sweet potato meets pumpkin pie meets almond. The genus also includes star apple and abiu, all sharing the same single-large-seed, milky-pulp lineage.

Try thisHalve lengthways, scoop with a spoon, work around the central mahogany seed.

In this family

1 fruit we source

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In peak
Mamey Sapote
Pouteria sapota
Russet-brown skin, salmon-orange flesh, single mahogany seed. Mamey tastes like sweet potato, pumpkin pie and marzipan all at once — dense, smooth and unmistakably Central American. Eat with a spoon, straight from the half.

Elsewhere in the Atlas

Six more families to wander

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Taste the family

Want to taste them all?

Build a box around sapote family — or pair them with siblings from across the Atlas.

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