This week’s entry is brought to you in association with Big Sheet – Available at a 7-Eleven store near you… Well, nearby if you live in Bangkok.
For those times when only a big sheet will do!
Well, I am now halfway through my effort to eat fifty-two new foods, one a week throughout 2013. I don’t have to look at a calendar to know that I am way behind schedule. I do, however, have to look at a calendar to discover that I should now be eating my forty-third virgin foodstuff.
You could say that I have almost literally bitten off more than I can chew! Or is that metaphorically? Or pathetically?
Consequently, it looks like I’m going to have to extend this debacle into next year… Sorry about that.
This week’s food first is Rambutan – Yet another acquisition from the Morrison’s “high carbon footprint international fruits and vegetables aisle” I so regularly frequent. From an environmental point of view, I usually walk, so that must offset some of the contribution I’m making to the enlargement of the hole in the ozone layer – The hole in the ozone layer no-one seems to mention anymore.
It is an exotic fruit, originating from South-East Asia, but now found all over the world thanks to people like me trying to eat new foods on a weekly basis. It has a dark red shell which is covered in soft spines.
Selamat Datang, hairy fruit!
The word rambutan comes from the Malay word for hairy. It’s nice when things are named in a way that describes what they look like – Orange probably being the greatest example in the fruit world… Blackbird being the best in the avian world (although, the female is brown, so that’s probably not especially helpful)…
Rambutans in their natural habitat…
A bit of research – there are a ridiculous number of how to eat rambutan videos on YouTube, so I’m clearly not much of a food pioneer – told me how I should go about eating the fruit.
Does it look like a lychee? An eyball? A pickled onion? Or a testicle? You decide… The answer you give may reveal a great deal about your maturity.
Apparently, I am supposed to cut the outer skin open and put the fruit inside in my mouth. I then chew it, being careful not to choke to death on the stone in the centre and, when ready, swallow.
The internet is a truly wonderful place for building knowledge, isn’t it?
The fruit inside the outer skin had the look of an eyeball, but seeing as this is a grown-up blog of sense, I should probably compare it to a lychee. Lychees look really like eyeballs!
It tasted incredibly sweet and grape-like, with a chewy texture somewhat reminiscent of pickled onion.
I did not choke to death on the stone – I hope that’s not too much of a disappointment for you!
Fifty-Two Weeks of Filling My Cheeks 