The cherimoya (Annona cherimolia), also known as chirimoya or chirimuya (a Quechua word that means cold seed) and the guanábana (Annona muricata), are two tree fruits from the same family. Both are native to the inter-Andean valleys of Peru and Ecuador. The first evidence of human consumption and possible cultivation of these fruits appears in Peru’s highlands around 2700 years ago and on the coast of central Peru around 1000 BC. Apparently, the cherimoya played a major role in the diet of pre Hispanic Andean peoples, as many lifelike images of the fruit appear on ceramic pieces produced by the Cupisnique, Moche and Inka cultures. The Jesuit chronicler Bernabé Cobo, in his early 17th Century Historia del Nuevo Mundo (History of the New World), described the cherimoya as “[…] white fleshed and very smooth, with a sweet and sour taste […] the best and cheapest of all the fruit of the Indies […]”; other Europeans of the day described it as “white ambrosia”. Certainly, by the mid-18th Century this much-appreciated fruit was being grown in the south of Spain with great success, and from there its production expanded to Portugal and Italy, and even as far as the Middle East. Today, Spain and Chile are the world’s two largest producers of cherimoya fruit.