Eating Thai Fruit Demands Serious Effort but Delivers Sublime Reward • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by greggman3 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:23 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #73

greggman3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Our experience is vastly different! While not a fan of dragon fruit, I do eat it relatively ofte…

I had both white and purple. I had hoped the purple would be sweeter but I never noticed a difference. It's hard to describe in words what how sweet something is but if I was to rank every fruit I've ever eaten in terms of sweetness Dragon Fruit would be at or near the bottom. I've have bland watermelon but I've had tons of sweet watermelon. I've bland other melons but I've had ton of sweet ones. I've never had a unsweet mango or an unsweet lychee or an unsweet mangosteen. I have had unsweet strawberries but mostly sweet ones.

Anyway, I'll keep trying dragon fruit hoping for a sweet one.

I think at the moment my favorite fruit I've had in SE Asia is cherimoya and I'm surprised they are not way more popular as they are so dang delicious! It's like someone made an apple + orange creamsicle fruit

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

#82

Post by Markoff » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:23 AM UTC

greggman3 wrote: post #69

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…

agreed, kiwi is the most similar fruit to dragon fruit, never heard anyone complaining about kiwi seed, just eat it, jeez

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

#83

Post by mohankumar246 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:24 AM UTC

Jackfruit is one of the most nutritious and colon healthy vegetable on the planet. It is full of healthy fiber and keeps you feeling full long after unlike other vegetables. Many families in South india cosume lot of jackfruit in the season. https://thejackfruitcompany.com/jackfruit-101/

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

#84

Post by 082349872349872 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:30 AM UTC

Easy Mode Durian: frozen durian has most of the taste and little of the smell.

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

#85

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:33 AM UTC

3131s wrote: post #72

I live in Cambodia where all of these fruits are available, and more. I like every fruit mentioned, except salak, and eat many of them every day. This author comes off as a deeply uncultured American giving a generic impression of a drunken 3-5 day visit to SEA. There are so many errors in this article it's unreal. Jackfruit does not have a "jagged sheath" (that's durian). Dragon fruit is only mushy when it's badly b…

YMMV, but I find that the taste of salak varies wildly. Sometimes they're mealy, dry, astringent and generally unpleasant. Sometimes they're crisp and tart like a tropical apple, and thoroughly delicious.

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

#86

Post by 3131s » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:33 AM UTC

magnio wrote: post #77

3131s wrote: post #72

I live in Cambodia where all of these fruits are available, and more. I like every fruit mentioned, except salak, and eat many of them every day. This author comes off as a deeply uncultured American giving a generic impression of a drunken 3-5 day visit to SEA. There are so many errors in this article it's unreal. Jackfruit does not have a "jagged sheath" (that's durian). Dragon fruit is only mushy when it's badly b…

It puzzles me how the smell of durian, which I find very aromatic, can be disgusting to some people. Also dragon fruit is a 'bland mush'? I've must have been eating the wrong fruit. There's also a red dragon fruit which is a little tastier.

And a purple one which has a sweeter and earthier taste, which is my favorite.

There are also many varieties of passion fruit, some of which are very sweet. One time I had a batch of an heirloom variety of yellow passion fruit from a small farm in the provinces and it really was unlike anything I've ever had since.

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

#87

Post by jiggunjer » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

fiblye wrote: post #68

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.

Have you tried the yellow/golden dragon fruit? They cost around 20x more than the normal white/purple type.

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

#88

Post by 3131s » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

Markoff wrote: post #80

3131s wrote: post #72

I live in Cambodia where all of these fruits are available, and more. I like every fruit mentioned, except salak, and eat many of them every day. This author comes off as a deeply uncultured American giving a generic impression of a drunken 3-5 day visit to SEA. There are so many errors in this article it's unreal. Jackfruit does not have a "jagged sheath" (that's durian). Dragon fruit is only mushy when it's badly b…

never in my life i had mushy dragon fruit and ate it multiple times a week when lived in Asia for years, i like it cooled from fridge I've never understood what's even stinky about durian, it just has its own odor like any other fruit, nothing deserving special treatment media give it, must be some durian wholesalers conspiracy trying to make it more interesting than it actually is

> i like it cooled from fridge

Me too, more so than for other fruits. Maybe that has to do with all the water content.

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

#89

Post by KMag » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #27

The primary limiting factor in distributing these is not that they're hard to eat: pineapples are a pain too, but they're available everywhere, while many of the fruit listed (eg. rambutan, salak/snakefruit, langsat/duku) are trivial to peel. Instead, it's simply that they don't transport well. Most tropical fruit available in the West are picked raw, kept refrigerated and chemically ripened on arrival, but this isn'…

My understanding is that this is the same reason why there are many more varieties of banana available in Thailand vs. the U.S.

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

#90

Post by phaus » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 5:37 AM UTC

Markoff wrote: post #80

3131s wrote: post #72

I live in Cambodia where all of these fruits are available, and more. I like every fruit mentioned, except salak, and eat many of them every day. This author comes off as a deeply uncultured American giving a generic impression of a drunken 3-5 day visit to SEA. There are so many errors in this article it's unreal. Jackfruit does not have a "jagged sheath" (that's durian). Dragon fruit is only mushy when it's badly b…

never in my life i had mushy dragon fruit and ate it multiple times a week when lived in Asia for years, i like it cooled from fridge I've never understood what's even stinky about durian, it just has its own odor like any other fruit, nothing deserving special treatment media give it, must be some durian wholesalers conspiracy trying to make it more interesting than it actually is

For hundreds of years people have been describing it as smelling like various unpleasant things, like rotten onions, rotten meat, pig feces, socks, etc.

In some countries where the fruit grows you aren't allowed to eat it in public in enclosed spaces, such as public transportation.

Some people hate the smell of roses. My wife can't stand the smell of honeysuckles but to me its one of the most pleasant smells in the world. Perhaps Durian smells good to some people. Its obviously got a controversial fragrance that many people find unpleasant. Its hardly a modern day media conspiracy.