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To the discovery of the Pinpin |
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Written by Administrator
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dimanche, 30 septembre 2007 |
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T The bed and breakfast the Pinpin d’Amour has its own told story. It suggests to the visitors to sample a weird fruit: the Pinpin. For those who go out for a walk along the tearing coast of Saint Philippe, it is impossible for them not to see these balls hanging by the trees. The pinpin is the fruit of the Vacoa Tree (Pendanus Utilis Borry) of which the scrawny outlines, caught in the black lava’s ground seems to brave the sea spray.“We can’t plant any carrots or turnip down here, says Louis Damour to his guests, there is only 10cm of soil on the volcanic ground”. Worried about preserving the natural environnement of Saint Philippe and using its treasures while maintaining a harmony, Louis Damour, has been fighting since 1987 in order that the Pinpin and the Vacoa find their place in the agriculture in his district and the reunionian gastronomy. 
- Who was the first who thought of eating it?
Maybe you had been questioning about it. Impossible to answer ? Not for the Pinpin: no one ate it before Louis Damour had discovered it. The Reunionians ate the cabbage of the Vacoa,( long ago considered as the meal of poor), but not the Pinpin.The Pinpin was just given to the pigs as their food in period of food shortage, like in Reunion Island during the World War II.We had to remove the grains from the green fruit with a hammer and cook a sort of white potato who left from it.One day Little Louis as we usually call him, urged by need and curiosity at the same time, tried to taste this potato from the pig’s bowl. But the experience had to stop here and the forgetting had to erase it. 
By tasting a piece of artichoke with vinaigrette in a Parisian Restaurant ten years later, Louis Damour remembered this moment of his childhood when he had tasted the Pinpin.It happened to be a real trigger mechanism! The idea never left him and when he came back to Reunion Island he tried again to cook and eat the Pinpin. Eating and tasting a new fruit is a dangerous experience for many reasons and when the night comes, when it’s time to drink the famous local cocktail called the Punch Maison, the “Pinpin King” will enjoy to tell you lots of up and downs and anecdotes that lead him to become the most fervent defender of the Vacoa and its fruit.Any doubts that the recipes of Marie Claude Damour will convince you about the gastronomic utility of this fight.
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