The Truth About Kiwifruit You Need to Know Right Now
Today I learned a fun fact about kiwifruit that took me on a wild goose chase, or I should say gooseberry chase.
I was waiting in a long line to check out at Trader Joes and a sweet elderly man started making conversation about the kiwifruit I was getting for my tiny human. Living in the south has turned me into one of those people who will talk to any stranger about almost anything. The gentlemen said, “These sell much better now than when they were called Chinese gooseberries.” At first, I thought he was just being a prankster but he told me he was serious.
Naturally, as soon as I got in the car I immediately googled it and he was right. I am still trying to wrap my head around this. Kiwifruit are not originally from New Zealand and they used to be called Chinese gooseberries. I am a total history nerd and food history has always fascinated me. So today I’m going to tell the story of kiwifruit and how it came to be named.
It turns out that as the Chinese gooseberry name suggests, kiwifruit originated in China. The kiwi began with the name “mihoutao,” which translates to macaque fruit. Apparently monkeys were big fans of the kiwi and that’s where the first name came from.
Chinese gooseberry seeds were brought to New Zealand from China in 1904 by Mary Isabel Fraser. Ms. Fraser was the principal of an all-girls school in New Zealand and was traveling with her sister, Katie Fraser, visiting mission schools. The women ended up in Ichang, China and it was here Mary got her hands on the seeds that would ultimately become the kiwifruit.
Ms. Fraser gave the seeds to a farmer, Alexander Allison, who turned out to have a green thumb. He planted the seeds and in 1910 the vines began to bear delicious kiwifruit. After people began trying the fruit they named it the Chinese gooseberry because the flavor resembled that of a gooseberry.
Fellow history nerds will appreciate that the timing of the sale of kiwifruit to the United States during the Cold War became problematic. A fruit named “Chinese” anything was not going to sell.
Turners and Growers first decided to change the name to melonette and that was ultimately unsuccessful. It comes as no surprise that one didn’t work. A kiwi tastes absolutely nothing like a melon so I’m not sure what they were thinking there. They then decided to choose the name kiwifruit in June of 1959.
As if my mind wasn’t blown by the fact that kiwis used to be called Chinese gooseberries, this mysterious fruit has had 4 names. Just another mystery of history…
After my world was rocked by this discovery my curious tendencies brought me even further down the rabbit hole. I just had to search for other foods that were originally called something else. A few additional shocking findings include:
- Candy corn used to be called chicken feed
- Eggos were originally “froffles” (get it “frozen” + “waffles”)
- Cotton candy began as fairy floss
I find that if you get out into the world and just talk to people, whether it be a coffee shop, an art museum or a seemingly mundane trip to Trader Joes, you will learn something new and fascinating every day.
A note on sources:
If any other food history nerds out there are interested in reading more you should check out this article I found on TIME which was helpful while writing this article. I also got a lot of great information from New Zealand’s government website.
