The fruit is eaten raw or cooked. The fruit has an exquisitely rich flavour when it is very soft and fully ripe, but the fruit of many cultivars is very harsh and astringent before then.

The peel of the fruit can be powdered and used as a sweetener.

The leaves are used to improve the flavour of pickled radishes.

The roasted seeds are a coffee substitute.

The stem bark is astringent and styptic.

The fruit is said to have different properties depending on its stage of ripeness, though it is generally antitussive, astringent, laxative, nutritive and stomachic.

The fresh fully ripe fruit is used raw in the treatment of constipation and haemorrhoids and when cooked is used to treat diarrhoea.

The dried ripe fruit is used in the treatment of bronchial complaints, whilst when ground into a powder it is used to treat dry coughs.

Juice from the unripe fruit is used in the treatment of hypertension.

The fruits, picked green and ripened in containers with the leaves, become very sweet and are considered to be antifebrile, antivinous and demulcent.

The fruits are also peeled and then exposed to sunlight by day and dew by night. They become encrusted with a white powder and are then considered to be anthelmintic, antihaemorrhagic, antivinous, expectorant, febrifuge and restorative.

The peduncle is used to treat coughs and hiccups.

The calyx is used to treat hiccups