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Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

nytimes.com

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Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#61

Post by csa »

wenc wrote: post #43
legitster wrote: post #33

This isn't exclusive to exotic fruit either. In a trip to central Washington, I bought a flat of Pluots (plum/apricot hybrids), and they were one of the most profound things I have ever eaten. So sweet and juicy, they almost burst like water balloons when you took a bite. Less than four hours away from where they are grown, I have yet to find any varieties with the same magic available in grocery stores. They good on…

Similarly, there's a fruit that is supposedly found all over the midwest but that I can never find in Chicago: the "paw paw". Apparently they don't travel or keep well, so supermarkets almost never stock them.

You pretty much have to go to a pawpaw patch when they are ripe and eat them there.

Try it. You won't regret it.

Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#62

Post by ponker »

I'm a homebody but great fruit I will travel for. The absolute best fruit is ripened on the plant to the point of being so soft that it would be destroyed if handled. I drive hours to various wild blackberry bushes around Northern California and eat them right off the bush -- just the act of separating them from the bush basically splits them in half so they could never be sold commercially.

Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#63

Post by mohaine »

markdown wrote: post #60
mjklin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Virginia we have pawpaw fruit that taste like custard, but must be eaten soon after picking since they bruise very easily and don’t store or ship well.

> pawpaw fruit that taste like custard Do you mean pawpaw, or custard apple (aka sugar apple in the US)?

https://www.starkbros.com/products/fruit-trees/pawpaw-trees

To eat cut in half and eat with a spoon. So good.

I planted a three variety pack 5ish years ago and got a lot last year. Safely a late freeze mostly got them this year

Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#64

Post by ndespres »

markdown wrote: post #60
mjklin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Virginia we have pawpaw fruit that taste like custard, but must be eaten soon after picking since they bruise very easily and don’t store or ship well.

> pawpaw fruit that taste like custard Do you mean pawpaw, or custard apple (aka sugar apple in the US)?

They are describing a fruit known in parts of the US as pawpaw and custard apple both. Never heard it called "sugar apple" but there are 2 different fruits known as custard apple so maybe you are thinking of a different one.

Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#65

Post by moneytide1 »

refurb wrote: post #31
moneytide1 wrote: post #29

"when the rising mercury concentrates sugars" Mercury is not capitalized here, which makes a huge difference. In assuming astrological Mercury, not somehow the element?

It's a reference to a mercury (the element) thermometer. When the temperature rises, the mercury rises. It's been decades since mercury thermometers were common for the average person. We'll need to update our idioms!

Makes sense now, temperature - I was looking into it too much because I've seen in Farmers Almanacs schedules of planting&harvesting with lunar cycles because the gravitational pull is thought to assist essential growth phases.

I thought perhaps Thai farmers were also heeding Mercury alignment or retrograde to achieve a certain fruiting outcome (gravity from Mercury would be negligible compared to our Moon).

Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#67

Post by maguay »

Another fun Thai fruit: ตะขบ (`da kop`), which are these tiny custard-like berries that literally spoil within hours after picking them. They make great shade trees, so you can often find them growing over a road in residential areas, and just pick a couple to eat on the spot. You'll never find them in a store, but they're a quintessential part of childhood here.

Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#68

Post by fiblye »

reedlaw wrote: post #47

Dragon fruit can be grown in California, Florida, and Hawaii and is not "bland mush with tiny seeds that can require floss to dislodge". The author must have had a bad one. They can be extremely sweet. The seeds are so small that they go down without noticing and I've never had to use floss. My favorite is a variety with deep red flesh. Mangosteen is so far from its depiction---"to eat a pile of mangosteens is an exe…

I've heard a lot about dragon fruit over the years and seen plenty of hype about it. I've been on what feels like a lifelong quest to find good dragon fruit, spread over many years and many countries, including throughout SE Asia. Somehow, it's all been just watery in flavor with the texture of soft watermelon.

Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#69

Post by greggman3 »

reedlaw wrote: post #47

Dragon fruit can be grown in California, Florida, and Hawaii and is not "bland mush with tiny seeds that can require floss to dislodge". The author must have had a bad one. They can be extremely sweet. The seeds are so small that they go down without noticing and I've never had to use floss. My favorite is a variety with deep red flesh. Mangosteen is so far from its depiction---"to eat a pile of mangosteens is an exe…

I don't dislike Dragon Fruit but having had 30 or so of them in SE Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan) I've never had one that was "extremely sweet". All of them were relatively on the bland every place I had one. It's good to know they can be sweet but I'm curious why finding a sweet one is so rare.

As for the seeds I agree. It's like eating kiwi seeds.

Mangosteen is great! No idea why the author had so much hate.

Durian though ... well I've tried it about 7-8 times and I get that it "tastes" good but I still don't get it. For example in Singapore there is a chain of cream puff stores that carry durian and vanilla cream puffs. To my "unrefined" palette they taste 95% the same but one stinks so if I was to go again I'd choose the vanilla that doesn't stink vs the durian that does. I'm sure I'll try them again but I suspect my reaction will be the same. Tastes fine (like vanilla custard) but why put up with the stink when I can just have vanilla custard.

That said, last summer when I was in Malaysia was the first time the smell started not being so repelling so (a) I'm getting used to it (b) they were in season (c) like the cat virus they've reprogramed my brain :P

Re: Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward

#70

Post by foobiekr »

mjklin wrote: post #42
legitster wrote: post #33

This isn't exclusive to exotic fruit either. In a trip to central Washington, I bought a flat of Pluots (plum/apricot hybrids), and they were one of the most profound things I have ever eaten. So sweet and juicy, they almost burst like water balloons when you took a bite. Less than four hours away from where they are grown, I have yet to find any varieties with the same magic available in grocery stores. They good on…

In Virginia we have pawpaw fruit that taste like custard, but must be eaten soon after picking since they bruise very easily and don’t store or ship well.

Pawpaws are nothing compared to their better cousins in the Annonaceae family, and in particular the Cherimoya.

Downside; they all contain annonacin, which may cause Parkinsons. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annonacin

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