FermenteaWhere food goes to change
← Ingredients

Substrates

Matiti fruit

Loading ratings…

Matiti is the fruit of Artabotrys brachypetalus, a Mozambican Annonaceae species. Communities in Chicualacuala District eat the ripe fruit fresh and make traditional drinks and jam from it.

Suggest a correction
A cluster of whole dark Matiti fruits with blue-grey bloom and green leaves rests on a warm ivory surface.

What matiti is

Matiti is the local name, in a Mozambican agricultural research factsheet, for the fruit of Artabotrys brachypetalus Benth., a member of the custard-apple family (Annonaceae). Kew accepts the name and includes Mozambique in the species' native range. A separate field record in the Flora of Mozambique lists the species from a Gorongosa riverbank, collector number TC124, but that specimen is not linked to the food account in Chicualacuala District.

Sources for this section

How the fruit is used

According to the 2014 factsheet from the Mozambican agricultural research institute IIAM, communities in Chicualacuala District, Gaza Province, eat ripe matiti fruit fresh and make traditional beverages from it, including aguardente. The factsheet gives December to May as the fruit-collection period. This is an agency-reported local context. It is not a national estimate of food use and not permission to harvest.

Sources for this section

The jam in the factsheet

The same factsheet describes a jam made from the fruit, with storage advice. Its ingredient list and its method disagree on water: the list gives half a cup, while the method uses one litre for boiling the fruit and another half cup for the syrup. The source does not say which is meant. This page therefore does not turn the text into instructions, and it does not treat the stated endpoint, jar handling or storage advice as validated for safety or shelf life.

Sources for this section

Season and habitat

The factsheet's fruit-collection window is December to May. An official IIAM technology catalogue, seen only as a search excerpt, gives January and February as the fruiting months; the two periods are not reconciled. Flora of Mozambique describes riverine vegetation and dry woodland, with an upper altitude summary of 1,140 m, while the Flora Zambesiaca description cited by Kew gives riverine forest, deciduous woodland and thickets up to 300 m. These are descriptions of where the plant has been recorded, not growing thresholds.

Sources for this section

What is not known

The reviewed sources give no propagation method, soil or pH range, irrigation schedule, container or greenhouse guidance, yield or sustainable-harvest study for matiti. The Gorongosa specimen is marked not planted, so it records a wild occurrence rather than a managed crop. The factsheet gives no voucher for the fruit behind its Chicualacuala account, and no source validates the fermentation or distillation of the traditional drinks it names.

Sources for this section

Places

Chicualacuala District

Documented use · Region evidence

An IIAM factsheet reports ripe matiti fruit eaten fresh and used in traditional beverages here; it is an agency-reported local context, not a national food-use estimate.

See Chicualacuala Districton the mapLocation source 1 →

Mozambique

Relationship not established · Country evidence

Kew includes Mozambique in the native range of the species; this row records range, not a food tradition.

See Mozambiqueon the mapLocation source 1 →

Related

More from Gaza Province

  • Hyphaene petersiana sap

    Sap tapped from Hyphaene petersiana, distinct from the fermented Utchema drink made from it and from sap of other palms.

Community

No community contributions have been published for this entry yet.

Share what you made

Sign in to contribute. Published comments and photos are free to read.

Share a creation photoSuggest a correction

Sources