I had a food adventure, I had dragon fruit.
I've been eyeballing these at the supermarket for years. How could something that looked as freaky as that not be the best fruit devised by nature? Put off trying one for years because, well, just look at the damn thing. It IS freaky. Cthulhu's gonads, dragon fruit, ugly ball of scaly pink leather. How do you get into something like that? I know you could just cut it in half, but that doesn't seem...proper.
Thankful, the art of getting into a dragon fruit was revealed to me while watching game shows in Japan. Two men with a little cart and toy pony were walking in opposite directions around an island. Their goal appeared to be to gather food to feed themselves. They went to sugar mills, peanut farms, and spent many hours in the ocean with professional fishermen looking for shellfish and lobsters. One of them came across a man with an orchird full of all sorts of fruit, dragon fruit among them. From this, I learned that you peel the scales back, like a many-flippered banana.
Okay. GAME ON.
I should mention I have no idea how to tell if a dragon fruit is ripe. I just, you know, dove in. The skin is pretty thick and tough, and I had to use my fingernails to start the process. Just beneath the outer layer the skin is a violent shocking pink, and within it is...this....thing.
Which...is that a dragon EGG? Is that Cthulhu's actual TESTICLE? I don't know, but it weirded me out more than the skin did. It was full of little black seeds, like kiwi fruit, and they were looking at me, I swear. I was sitting there, looking at this testicleeggfruit that I was supposedly going to put in my mouth, and thinking of the egg sacks spiders make.
I put it in my mouth anyway.
And....
....
...drumroll...
...it tastes like nothing. It isn't sweet, sour, bitter, it isn't anything. It takes like a giant mouthful of wet, slick, BLAND.
???
Come on. Does nature know nothing about the power of packaging? What's the point of making a bright pink obnoxious flipper ball if it isn't going to taste like a cocktail party? Colour me disappointed. Cthulhu, your gonads are lame.
What a total drag!
ReplyDeleteThanks for saving us all from a shopping mistake.
;)
It's True. Dragonfruit is all show and no substance. Looks fantastic in yer fruitbowl though.
ReplyDeleteCthulhu's testicle. Heh.
There are drinks here that feature dragonfruit, but not by itself, presumably because it's not a strong enough. I seem to recall it being a fairly light citrus flavor, no zing, but tasty enough.
ReplyDeleteI like dragonfruit. Mind you, I'm also a Philistine and cut it in half to eat it.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't taste nearly as strong as it should tste from the colour and general attitude - it's a gentle wimpish fruit, but with lots of lovely subtle flavours. I don't know what it tates unripe: my guess is dull, given its flavours when ripe.
I'm buying bullaces on Thursday!
My guess is that you're eating the wrong kind of dragonfruit. The red and white are both bland as cardboard but the yellow is quite sweet.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather had a smallish hobby farm and was always growing new fruit. Courtesy of him we have both red and yellow cacti and yes, we get twice as many red as yellow.
I know I've already replied to this, but apparently blogger ate my own comment. How rude. And now I can't remember what I said.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. I'm not surprised it's put in drinks, it'd make a good filler. The meat is good stuff, even if it is tasteless.
Gillian, how do you tell when they're ripe?
I did see that on the wiki page, Mr Miller, but I've only ever seen the one variety at the supermarkets. When I get the chance, I'll see if the Queen Vic market has any yellow ones on offer, 'cause I really -want- this fruit to be good.
How do I tell when they're ripe? Half of it is examining the fruit closely (including smelling it) and the other half is wild guessing.
ReplyDelete