A Florida neighbor came by a while ago with a bag of small yellow fruits. What are they, I wondered? She made me guess and as she knew, I had no clue. I tried apricots, figs, kumquats, and pears, but wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

Loquats, she told me. Loquats which are strangely unrelated to kumquats despite the rhyming names and visual similarities. On the family tree (so to speak) with apples, peaches and pears rather than citrus, they are originally from Asia. In fact, some people call them Chinese plums. She had imported hers to the Panhandle from central Florida and apparently they grow like weeds. From one tree she now has four that she has allowed to get tree-sized.

I bit into one of the little fruits and swooned. Apricot-like they are sweet and tangy and not-quite-like anything I’ve had before. Juice dribbles down your chin and they…