Kingston, Jamaica
The reader writes:
I’m in Kingston, Jamaica on business. This is a photo of my breakfast this morning. It’s ackee & saltfish, johnny cakes, fruit and a cup of Earl Grey tea. Ackee & saltfish is the national dish of Jamaica. Ackee is a tree fruit that is poisonous until it ripens. When ripe, the inner flesh is cooked with other ingredients. It has the appearance and texture of scrambled eggs but a milder flavor. Johnny cakes are like little fried biscuits. They are awesome.
This trip has almost ruined my attitude toward our fruit back home. On my first day I bought some local bananas. They are about half the size of bananas at our local grocery store, and they were incredible. The banana flavor is intense and they are really sweet. It’s almost like eating banana candy. I’m finding the same thing with other fruit. Grapefruit, mangoes, plantains, melons – they are all so much better than our grocery store products that they almost seem to come from different plants. I know my family’s fruit bill will double when I get back to Texas because I’ll be seeking out fruit as good as what I’ve had here.
Brian 
SLC 
Ackee and saltfish – totally delicious!
One of the reasons fruit tastes different in the US is that the stuff that is widely available to most (in supermarkets) is usually not quite ripe yet and therefore not as tasty as it could be. This is particularly so for tropical fruit. Invariably banana, mango, papaya are unripe and therefore not as sweet as they could be – but they look better and are unblemished, which seems to be what the consumer wants.