A Definitive Ranking of 7 Stone Fruit
If you asked the average person what their favorite fruit is they’d likely respond with what they consume most regularly: bananas, apples, strawberries, grapes, or oranges. Stone fruits don’t tend to get much love, but they should because they’re really the best.
So what the heck is a stone fruit?
Also known as a drupe, a stone fruit has a single seed, or pit, a thin outer skin, and a fleshy layer in between the two. They’re generally in season for a shorter period, and tend to have a shorter shelf life once picked so it’s almost understandable that they aren’t the first fruits that come to mind when a toddler, or another curious human asks, “What’s your favorite fruit?”
But they should be!
They’re easily the most versitle of the fruit types, and with their shorter period of edibility they deserve to at least be in your top 3 fruits.
While as a category they’re easily the best, not all stone fruit are as good as each other: so here is a definitive ranking of stone fruit from least good (which is still excellent) to best.
7.) Cherries
These are a real treat but are plopped at the bottom of the list because they’re so difficult to pit, and rarely come in pre-pitted form. Plus if you’re dealing with red cherries (because they do indeed come in other colors) the likelihood of staining whatever you’re wearing as you eat these is high. It’s usually worth the risk, but sometimes it’s just not.
6.) Mangoes
Wonderfully versatile, these go well in smoothies, ice cream, salsa, or with a little chile, lime and salt. But they’re a bit difficult to tell when they’re perfectly ripe due to their protective outer skin so rank a little lower than the other fruit on the list.
5.) Raspberries
Another goes-well-in-almost-everything fruit. But like cherries, raspberries are also stain producing. The wide availability of raspberry flavored treats gave this a bump over cherries and mangoes, especially since in its blue slush puppie form, it is the best selling of all slush flavors.
4.) Peaches
There is a princess named after this fruit so you know it’s pretty great. These go well in pies, on pancakes, and eaten just as is, though if they’re ripe that’s guaranteed to be a messy affair.
3.) Dates
If you’ve never been to Palm Springs you may not be familiar with date shakes, but they’re pretty easy to make if you have the right ingredients. Dates are a labor of love: the trees can take up to 20 years to actually bear fruit, and have to be pollinated by hand, and you can taste the effort put in in the fruit produced.
2.) Coconuts
If you’re going the dairy-free route, the milk of the coconut is great in any latte, on cereal, or as a coffee creamer, and several non-dairy ice creams use coconut milk as a base. And it also somehow produces water in addition to milk, which is great for rehydrating after working out. Don’t want to drink it? Well, coconuts also make excellent edibles: coconut cream pie, coconut curry, and coconut macaroons, just to name a few.
1.) Olives
Olives go well on everything: pizza, sandwiches, in a martini, on a salad, as a tapenade on some crackers, you can throw them in your deli meat, or your loaves of bread, they make the perfect oil to cook with, and if you’re feeling adventurous you can even have olive ice cream. They make any event immediately feel fancy when you break them out and they’re stuffed with cheese, or jalapeños, or chorizo, or garlic. And you can easily get a big mix of them, sometimes even pre-pitted, at your local supermarket olive bar.
They’re also entertaining: ever plopped some pitted whole black olives on your finger tips, and run around chasing your siblings threatening to touch them with your olive hands? Yeah you have. And there is a delightful character named after the fruit: Olive Oyl, most notably played by Shelley Duvall in the live-action 1980 film, Popeye, which is always worth a re-, or first, watch.
Olives are number one because they’re the most versatile, and best tasting, stone fruit.
Wait a minute, what about avocados?
If you’re wondering, why aren’t avocados on this list? They have massive pits and seem like the rest of these. You may be surprised to learn an avocado is a berry. And this might be confusing because a raspberry is a stone fruit. I don’t make the rules, I just eat (and rank) the fruits.
