Further up and Further in

For those of you who are interested in fruits (and things) in foreign flaces, I mean places, a post just for you. Apparently there is a variety of mango that even surpasses the mangosteen (both fruits, but nothing like each other) in its divinity. It's been said that we may not want to try a mango in the States again after having this variety. It's a risk I'm willing to take.

So, without further ado, some of our recent fruity experiences:


Fruit vendors at Parrys Corner, fruit all neatly stacked.






Palm fruit. Not very flavourful, but refreshing on a hot day. Tastes a little like tender coconut.





Peanuts. I never had fresh/not-quite-ripe peanuts before I came to India. It makes more sense now why we call them 'peanuts.' Besides having a pod, the fresh peanuts taste a lot like raw peas. They're called 'groundnuts' here.






Litchi. Also known in other places as 'lychee', 'leechee', 'lichee', or 'lichi' (since it's an Asian fruit, and like many names of things transliterated from a completely different alphabet into ours, it has as many spelling variations as you can think up. Almost). The first person to try to persuade me to the joys of lychee was Asiankeng, and I must say she wasn't entirely persuasive. But then, we were eating canned leechee, I believe. Just look at this beautiful litchi, a blushing beauty, in the bloom of youth.





And here, freshly peeled lichee. I was eating lichi this morning and I thought to myself that had I gone into ophthalmology (correct though ridiculous spelling), I would consider practicing surgeries and things using litchi fruits as models. It has kind of the same consistency as an eyeball, except for the big brown cacao bean-like pit in the middle. I guess it looks more like a cataractous eye, being cloudy and all.

I must defend myself in that I was attempting to convince them to eat CANNED lychees, which, according to Deej, "look like maggots Jen! THEY LOOK LIKE MAGGOTS!!!"

Give me credit that they both even ate them, much less liked them... hey, remember the lychee red curry from, y'know, that Thai place across the street from my house...? Good stuff...

Oh, and PS: no, you really do not want to try mangoes in the U.S. It is an experience that brings tears of depression to my eyes...