Tuesday, 21 April 2009

It's Kiwifruit not Kiwi

Humanity's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.
-
Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

This is a kiwi. You don't eat it.


The kiwi is a flightless bird endemic to New Zealand (a New Zealander is also called a Kiwi which tends to confuse people a bit).


This is NOT a kiwi. It's a kiwifruit (or a chinese gooseberry), a fruit, you eat it. More specifically, the kiwifruit above is actually a golden kiwifruit rather than your regular kiwifruit. It is not a flightless bird or a New Zealander. New Zealanders are not named after a fruit, we are named after our native bird.

Okay, lesson over now.

7 comments:

  1. Aww, I've always loved kiwis (the birds). As for the fruit, it's grown on me. I used to hate it, but after recently giving it another chance, I'm glad I did!

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  2. Duly noted. But you know how backwards we do everything in the States. :)

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  3. Kiwifruits aren't even native to NZ are they? The ones for sale in the grocery shop here have been imported from Italy, but I was under the impression that they are originally chinese...

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  4. Nope you're right, not native to NZ so the name kiwifruit always seemed a little odd. I always thought they originated in China too, hence the other name we know them as, chinese gooseberries, but I don't know for sure. Ooo, well Wikipedia says native to South of China so, yeah...! I heard on the radio the other day that they are trying to create a third variety of kiwifruit which would be a sort of reddish colour inside.

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  5. What do you make of this kiwi fruit: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/2382713/Pero-pays-1000-for-feijoa

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  6. I saw this article just in the news today. Guess it's not too unusual then!

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