17 May 2007

Tropical fruits

I am eating the most interesting fruit right now. On the outside it looks like a mini mango, a mostly green skin. Inside it is bright yellow, exactly the colour of tumeric. Like tumeric, it stains my hands yellow when I touch it too. I ask my collegue what it's called in Lao. It has a relatively large single black seed inside. He said mak mon khai which translates to 'egg fruit'. I don't know how I'm going to get the English name of this one. Now that he mentions it, it is the colour of egg yolk. The texture is similar too a cooked egg yolk- powdery in texture. It's slightly sweet.

I bought a bag of those strange palm seed things. They are not the same and the palm seeds I get at home so they must be something else. It looks young coconut, a transluscent white colour, but doesn't really have a taste. It is watery, but not sweet.

Another fruit which are in abundant supply is the wax apple. We have a large tree outside the office. M said it's like the lilli pillis we have at home. I think she's right because they're both from the Myrtaceae of plants. The fruit is pink when ripe and looks like a bell. The texture and flavour is similar to a star fruit.

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