Fruit Ninja’s Got Nothing on Me

I never realized until coming to India how fruit deprived I have been. When eating fruit, I stick to the basics: apples, bananas, strawberries, etc. In the past few weeks I have eaten some fruits that I didn’t even know existed, and a few I had only tasted in Snapple drinks.

The best thing about fruit in India is it is all fresh from the source, unprocessed, and sold to you for really cheap by street vendors.  Luckily, TG was there to photograph my entire fruity venture.

My first “exotic” fruit and all time favorite was a coconut. I’m not talking about the brown, hairy, dried-out kind, but the green fresh coconuts. The street vendors use their giant machetes to cut a little hole in the top and stick a straw through. After drinking the delicious, extremely hydrating water, you return the coconut to the vendor and he cuts the actual coconut flesh out. So, you get the awesome water, and the actual fruit for a total of 25 rupees (50 cents).

Next fruit I tried was a lychee. To me, lychee’s taste exactly like grapes, but are much more complicated to eat because you have to remove the outer skin and pick the fruit around the massive pit.

I’m not sure if I have ever had an actual mango. I probably have. I have definitely had mango candy, juice, and sorbet. The mangos here are great, super fresh and juicy.

Despite having plenty of pomegranate juice, I have never had a pomegranate. The pomegranates we bought both times were very disappointing. They were dry and had a few bruises. Despite that, I really enjoyed pomegranate, which shows that when I eventually have a good one, I am going to really enjoy it.

The weirdest fruit I tried was the jackfruit. Jackfruit can be cooked raw to make a curry, or when ripe, you can eat the outer seeds. The seeds were complicated to take apart, but I really enjoyed the taste of the fruit. I can’t think of any other flavor to compare it to. It was very unique.

The only fruit that I have had here that I didn’t really like was the papaya. I didn’t really like the taste and thought it tasted less fruity and more like a melon than I expected.

That’s all the fruits I can think of. I still want to try a guava; maybe I’ll update this post later if I try one. Till then, Namaste.

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