Fruit

There's a crazy huge variety of fruit here, which I know is true of lots of tropical places, but it's still delightful. Of course there are coconuts and pineapples, and a wide variety of bananas - my favorites are small firm ones that have a dense flesh that has a little bit of tartness, but no astringency.

Rambutan is in season right now and is for sale all along the roadsides outside of the city - they are red (a less popular variety is yellow), slightly larger than a golf ball, covered in soft spikes. They are similar to a lychee - white sweet, slightly tart flesh around a large seed, easy to peel and pop the edible portion out.

And I've discovered that I love mangosteen - strange purplish red fruits with small bracts at the stem end. Very thick spongy skin that covers white sweet tart flesh with very few seeds.

Another type of fruit (I don't even know the name of them) that look like largish, very round red grapes, with thick tough skin, must be rolled in the palms until soft, then peeled to reveal a tasty flesh.

I have also discovered that I am absolutely not a fan of guava - it's like a dry, astringent apple without much flavor. I really don't see the appeal. I suspect I might like it better when ripe - I think they were eating them while green.

Jack fruit is interesting - they are very large and spiky. Cleaning them is a lot of work - most people buy the cleaned inner fruit at the market. It has a white sticky sap that can be dealt with by covering ones hands in oil before scooping out the flesh-covered seed pods. They taste like a mix of mostly banana and a little bit of pineapple. And even once they've been cleaned the sap can be an issue - my lips stuck together after I ate a few of the seed pods.

And I got to try the fruit of the cacao pod - the same one whose seeds are used for making chocolate. The edible portion was thin slimy flesh covering the seeds - nicely tart. Sadly, no hint of chocolate flavor. While sharing one with the sisters, we marveled at how people managed to figure out how to make chocolate from these.

My hosts kept threatening to make me try durian, but that never materialized - whether from pity or forgetfulness, I don't know, but am pretty sure I'm grateful either way; the only thing I know about it is that it stinks terribly, which is enough for me.

Oh, and while we were in Kandy we got to pick fresh star fruit from the in-laws' tree, as well as another fruit that was kidney shaped, grew directly from the truck of the tree, and wasn't very tasty to me - cannot remember the name of it.

I was served several fresh fruit juices - usually upon arriving at a hotel, but also on a few occasions at Kalli's - and, embarrassingly, don't remember the names of any. You know how Eskimos supposedly have hundreds of different words for snow? I think that must be true of Sri Lankans and fruit.