Which vegetables and fruits do you peel, and why?

Cooking Discussions
21

I might leave tomatoes unpeeled; certainly in raw preparations, but when I don’t peel tomatoes in cooked dishes I often regret it.

I’ll even go so far as to say after the first batch or tof tomato season, I prefer straining my gazpacho because of the difference it makes, and that’s mostly because of vegetable skins.

And fwiw, I put all of my food waste, as well as what I can rescue from my family in our yard waste bin.

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22

Curious about everyone’s thoughts on these comestibles:

  • Kiwi
  • Celery
  • Grapes
  • Guava
  • Apricots
  • Radish
  • Ginger
  • Loquat

Peel, no peel? It depends?

23

Don’t peel any of those. Then again, I don’t remember the last time I ate a guava.

24

Kiwi and ginger gets peeled of this list

25
  • Kiwi - we scoop
  • Celery - no peel
  • Grapes - not unless I’m a jazz diva
  • Guava - never purchased
  • Apricots - no peel
  • Radish - only Daikon
  • Ginger - peel unless extremely lazy/braising slices
  • Loquat - never had
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26

You should try to get some - when ripe one of the best/most aromatic fruits

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27

Whatabout: Persimmons

28

Never had one :disappointed:

29
  • Kiwi - peel
  • Celery - nope, but maybe I might pull some strings
  • Grapes - heck no
  • Guava - have not had unless it was juice or paste
  • Apricots - give me the delicious skin!
  • Radish - nope, but I scrub before whatever they get used in
  • Ginger - depends. For paste, I don’t bother. For stir fry, it depends on how much I care about aesthetics that day. But would be scrubbed, regardless.
  • Loquat - have not had.
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30

Fuyus, I don’t peel; Hachiyas, I scoop the squishy-ripe flesh out of the peel.

Other things people mention peeling:

  • potatoes, almost never
  • cucumbers, I taste the skin and only peel if bitter (I don’t generally buy waxed cucumbers)
  • ginger, depends how thick/tough the peel and how I’m preparing it (if grating, I don’t peel regardless, because the peel gets left behind
  • carrots, rarely, unless they’ve got so much dirt they’re hard to get clean
  • beets, usually
  • eggplant, only if I’m scooping out roasted flesh for mashing/puréeing
  • peppers, only if roasted until the skins are charred
  • tomatoes, almost never
  • apples and pears, for some but by no means all cooking/baking
  • stone fruit, only peaches occasionally for some cooking
  • winter squash, usually

Why would anyone peel kumquats, given that the skin is the sweet part? The bit of sour of the flesh with the sweet of the larger real estate of the peel is what makes them delicious.

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31

Depends on the cucumbers, you know the difference. Normally I don’t peel anything I don’t have to, tomatoes grown here have thick skins from the hot x3 summers, but I don’t peel them. Or eggplants, especially if they’re home grown and thin skinned. Carrots often, sometimes the skins are bitter.
I do scrub or peel sunchokes.

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32

Anybody who peels kumquats deserves the tart they end up with. Right before Covid my cousin from Illinois came to visit, and damned if she didn’t eat ALL of the kumquats on my little tree. She hasn’t been back since.

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33
  • Kiwi - I also scoop as I am not a fan of fuzziness in fruit or thinking
  • Celery - depends but I find that a light peel improves the texture when the stringiness is gone
  • Grapes - why would anyone do this?
  • Guava - yes as with many tropical fruits like mangos, papayas, passion fruit, bananas, pineapple
  • Apricots - huh? This is a thing?
  • Radish - for those little bitty ones like what the French eat sliced with butter on bread? No.
  • Ginger - always with a spoon or dull edge
  • Loquat - no clue what this is

No one mentioned soursop. Try eating one without peeling. Hah.

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34

Someone I know, who is Lithuanian-Austrian Canadian, wasn’t familiar with tamales. She went to a Mexican restaurant with her new American husband in Cincinnati. She started eating her tamale. Very chewy and fibrous. The server came over and told her she wasn’t supposed to eat the corn husk. :rofl:

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35
  • Kiwi - peel
  • Celery - peel, just roughly
  • Grapes - no peel
  • Guava - no peel (one of my favourite fruits!)
  • Apricots - no peel
  • Radish - no peel
  • Ginger - always peel
  • Loquat - peel
36

Thank you!

37

Interesting. I grew up with guava (but don’t like it) – I have never seen it peeled.

It’s a popular snack in season, hard unripe fruit is sliced up on street carts piled high, and sprinkled with salt & chilli powder. Then when it gets soft (and sweet rather than tart), its served plain. There are camps of unripe vs ripe (my dad never touched a guava the moment it starting ripening; my SIL only eats them ripe… worked well when they were both in the same place with a pile of guavas :joy:)

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38

I don’t like hachiyas (too squishy)

I have eaten fuyus with the peel but I much prefer them peeled. Reminds me of the texture contrast between mango skin & flesh.

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39

I don’t generally eat Hachiyas as is (though if you freeze them, the squishy flesh takes on a nicer, sorbet-like texture); rather, I use them as an ingredient, so they become integrated in whatever I’m making.

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40

I love fuyu persimmons and always peel. I asked my mom once why we don’t eat skin on and she said you can’t, but she was definitely one who was always just told to do things a certain way because of tradition or just because. She was not a boat-rocker. :laughing:

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