Ice Cream Bean

Ice cream bean is the common name for Inga edulis, a fruit-bearing tree of the legume family native to Central and South America, cultivated widely across Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Costa Rica and Colombia. The name comes from the sweet, smooth white pulp, or aril, that surrounds the seeds inside the long pod, which is eaten raw as a snack and is often described as tasting like vanilla ice cream, sometimes with subtle cinnamon notes; the seeds themselves must be cooked before eating and taste similar to chickpeas. Indigenous Amazonian peoples have cultivated the tree for millennia for shade, food, timber and medicine, and in Colombia the arils are fermented into an alcoholic beverage called cachiri for festival celebrations.