Food Trend Prediction: Finger Limes

We'd never heard of finger limes before a few months ago, but now we're seeing them pop up all over the place. Which seems appropriate since they're also known as "citrus pop rocks"!

The pulp inside these skinny citrus fruits is made of hundreds of tiny balls of juice, edible bubbles that literally burst between your teeth. How cool is that?

Also called citrus caviar, finger limes are native to the rainforest regions of Australia. They grow to be a few inches long and an inch or so in diameter, and come in every shade of red, pink, yellow, and green. As of right now, only a few growers in the US are cultivating and selling finger limes. The rest are imported from Australia.

We hear that finger lime juice tastes like a cross between a lemon and a lime, and is tart enough on its own to make your lips pucker. Chefs have been using a scoop here and there as an accent to dishes. We can just imagine munching away on a salad or plate of poached fish when suddenly - POW! - getting hit with a surprising burst of citrus flavor.

We can't wait to get our hands on a few of these fruits! We might have to wait awhile because it's still pretty rare to find finger limes in a public market. But if our food trend prediction turns out to be true, hopefully they'll start being easier to find.

Have you ever tasted finger limes?

More on Finger Limes:
• Interview with Finger Lime Grower James Shanley on KCRW Good Food
• Finger Lime: The Caviar of Citrus by David Karp in the LA Times
• Finger Limes from WildFingerLime.com
• Finger Limes from Fingerlime.com

(Image: KCRW Good Food)

Comments (10)

My husband's family owns a citrus/avocado farm. When we went up for Thanksgiving one of his uncles brought finger limes for everyone to try. I thought they were really tasty! They're definitely tart; lemon-lime is a good way to describe it. Eating them was a little awkward - slice it in half and squeeze all the little juicy bits into your mouth - but I imagine that as you eat more of them you become more proficient at not shooting little juice balls down the front of your shirt. Not that I did that. Twice.

These look so tasty! I always love tart fruit and am going to find some of these to garnish a sorbet or a cheesecake.

Anyone know a source in SF? I keep finding LA, San Diego, but no San Francisco.

Actually, they've been around for a while, just not available mainstream until recently. They're great.

I will surely be on the lookout for those little mouth-puckerers. :) They sounds great. Thanks, I love reading articles like this one.

I would bet Dean and Deluca is stocking these as we speak (read).

And they are a native Australian fruit! Actual bush tucker or Citrus australasica if you want to get all Latin. So proud

Hi All! My family grows and sells finger limes in California...we have a couple more weeks left on the season to ship out fruit. Email me if you want to get some...
megan@shanleyfarms.com

I think the Fingerlime might be one my very favorite fruit and I do a lot of fruit reviews so that is saying something. I put them in my champagne last new year's for a little pop of fun. They are great!

In SF, they are currently stocking these at the Whole Foods on Franklin. Excited to try them! They seem like they'd be good in or on a salmon roll.