Here's your Christmas dessert - fresh tropical fruit! Three you should know about:
1. Durian - 'the king of the fruits' - looks like a spiky football, smells like old sweaty socks and fermented sewage, tastes wonderful. But it's hard to get past the smell to get to the tasting, so a lot of folks don't eat it. Many hotels and some mass transit prohibit taking them on the premises. That's my kind of fruit!
2. Mangosteen - 'the queen of the fruits' - thick purple shell around delicate, segmented white fruit. Tastes like heaven itself. I believe Queen Elizabeth once promised a king's ransom to anyone who could bring a fresh one to her in England, but no one could because they spoil too quick for that long of a voyage. Thus, you don't see them much outside of Asia. They are one of the best things about moving to Bangkok, and I cannot wait until they're in season and everywhere.
3. Rambutan - 'red hairy sphere' [that's the literal translation from the Chinese] - like a hairy lychee - soft (but intimidating looking) red hairs on a thickish shell cover a sweet white fruit around a pit. Also delicious.
So there you have it - a quick tour of some of the heavy hitters for tropical fruit. Merry Christmas!
Posts
6 comments:
Yup, I wanted to go out and buy some after reading this description, "spiky football, smells like old sweaty socks and fermented sewage."
oh man, if you can eat durian, you will have so much street cred with folks -- for that reason alone, it's worth a try
You know....I get the sense that all you two are doing is eating. Ok, not all you do....just most of what you do.
Merry Christmas!
no, it's pretty much all we do. :)
That's a great description of durian, except for the tastes great part. The durian I had reminded me of onion and garlic pudding that had been left out in the sun for a couple hours.
Yuck.
well, i'd take durian over 'stinky tofu' any day. 'stinky tofu' is a taiwanese delicacy that is literally rotten tofu. the rottener, the better, according to its fans. i've never actually eaten it because i can't actually get it close enough to my mouth to taste it - it sets off the gag reflex, because, well, that's what the gag reflex is for - to keep rotten food from getting inside of you.
durian isn't rotten, it's just stinky :)
Post a Comment