The Fruit Explorer Encounters Lychee Nuts

To All,

For months the Fruit Explorer has been fantasizing about going to H Mart, the Korean supermarket that is known for exotic fruits. Dreams do come true, and, prompted by Mike, I finally decided to undertake a journey and travel to Burlington. As I entered the fruit section, I immediately saw a sign for lychee nuts. I first learned about them from Mad Magazine when I was in the eighth grade and have been red hot to try them ever since. My opportunity had arrived. (The preferred spelling in the Third New International is "litchi," but I will go with H Mart's spelling. The first syllable, which is accented, can be pronounced as "lie" or "lee." It is a fruit rather than a nut, but I will follow the traditional usage.)

An Asian woman was standing at the lychee bin and furiously sorting through a huge pile of nuts (see picture), quickly examining and discarding them. The nut was roughly round, about an inch across, with a tough, pebbled exterior that looked like armor plating. I was totally unsure how to judge ripeness, so I asked her what to look for. There was such a look of baffled uncertainty on my face that she intuited that I was new to this nut; to bring me up to speed, she showed me how to peel one so that it was sitting on a little pedestal of peel and offered it to me. I took it and ate it. Meanwhile, Mike, who denounces me as a disgrace to civilization when I eat a test grape at Market Basket before buying, was watching, horrified. It turned out, however, that there was a trash can right by the lychee bin, and it was filled with discarded peels. Even Mike saw that the store had placed the trash can there and that it expected shoppers to try out the nuts. He concluded that mores are different in Korean grocery stores, and he accepted the rightness of sampling at H Mart. This is the latest proof that travel is broadening.

The woman told me that the little white patches that looked like nascent mold made no difference. I aped her method and sorted furiously through the pile, though the nuts all looked the same to me, and randomly picked out ten. On a second visit to H Mart a week later, an Indian man saw me sorting through the lychee nuts, and he volunteered advice. He said there should be some red left; avoid the ones that are all green. Avoid them if they are too soft. Pick the bigger ones. Root around in the bottom of the bin where the best nuts tend to be. He demonstrated by digging down and making the nuts fly; I now understood the technique of the Asian woman. (This Indian man was quick to offer me advice since a few minutes before he had advised me on another fruit, as you will read in the next e-mail.)

At home the big moment to experience lychees had finally arrived. I had watched the woman peel one but was unsure about how to proceed. I found that the tough look of the peel was deceptive; the touch of a thumbnail easily broke the armor plating, and it peeled right off with no problem. This left a soft, white, moist, slippery fruit, which I popped into my mouth; see picture. It was very sweet and had an unusual but pleasing taste. There was a pit in the center that needed to be spit out; see picture. I quickly made my way through all ten and would have eaten more if available. (The pits in my nuts were much smaller than the ones pictured. Also, my nuts were mainly brown with a bit of green rather than red like in many of the pictures.)

The verdict: If, like me, one craves sweetness, then this fruit is a winner. At about twelve cents per nut, this fruit will not break the bank.

Your party tip takes advantage of the fact that one can peel the nut without touching the meat so that there is just a little pedestal of peel that one can use as a handle; this means that one person can peel and feed a lychee nut to another in a fully hygienic way. Here's what you do. Teach all your guests the hygienic way of peeling a lychee nut. Have everyone sit around the table and blindfold everyone except your self. You start by peeling a nut and and feeding it to someone. You say nothing, so, while others probably hear the smacking noises and know that a feeding is going on, no one else knows who is being fed. You put your blindfold on, ring a bell that you have put in the center of the table, and the person who was just fed takes his/her blindfold off, peels a nut, feeds one of the blindfolded guests, puts his/her blindfold back on, rings the bell, and the cycle continues. Since the person who is fed does not take his/her blindfold off until the feeder is back in place and blindfolded, no one ever knows who is doing the feeding (except for the initial feeding). The party game continues as long as the lychee nuts last. There is an air of mystery due to the anonymity of the feeders, and each person, whenever fed, can only imagine who the feeder is. Plus, anything is fun that involves blindfolds.

See the next to last picture for an example of lychee art. If the Museum of Fine Arts can do a quilting exhibition, surely it can justify an exhibition of lychee art.

              

      

The Fruit Explorer Encounters Kumquats

To All,

Market Basket's latest surprise is kumquats. The kumquat is bright orange, egg-shaped, and about the size of a pecan; see pictures below. The kumquat was in the genus Citrus until a splitter came along in 1915 and moved it into its own genus. (Note: Taxonomists who like to divide closely related organisms into multiple taxonomic categories are called splitters; those who like to combine them together into a single taxonomic category are called lumpers. The divide between splitters and lumpers is almost religious. I am a lumper, and I despise splitters, who in my view are insensitive to the variability in natural populations. For this reason, I consider a kumquat to be a citrus fruit.) I paid $3.50 for a pint, which was about 20 kumquats.

The YouTube video on how to eat a kumquat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0nK5zXMDDc only lasted 46 seconds. This is the shortest fruit video I have seen, thus indicating that this is the fruit for those who crave simplicity. The technique is to wash, pick off any remaining stem, roll it around to crush it a bit (to release the essential oils, according to the experts), eat it whole, and swallow or spit out the seed(s).

With these instructions fresh in my memory, I washed, picked, rolled, and ate. There was initially an almost shocking burst of tartness, I found that if I chewed through this, then after a couple of seconds the tartness was replaced by a pleasing citrus taste. I ate eight or ten of them. 

My kumquats each had from zero to three seeds. Each seed had the look and size of an orange seed; see picture below.

I also tried a peeled kumquat. If you roll it around and crush it well, you can cut off one end and peel it in about 20 seconds. I found that this dialed down both the burst of tartness and also the flavor. Peeling this fruit, however, destroyed its simplicity, which is its hallmark, so I don't plan to peel my kumquats in the future.

Needless to say, people go ape over the nutritional properties of kumquats, e.g., http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/kumquat-fruit.html.

The verdict: While I am a fan of citrus fruit, and while I like the taste of kumquat, the initial blast of tartness was too much. Kumquats are like cherry bombs--small but strong. Oranges are both better and cheaper. For me, the kumquat will be nothing more than a very occasional change of pace. I can see, however, how this fruit could appeal to those who seek zest.

Seven hours after eating the kumquats, I could still taste them. I gave away the half-pint that remained.

Your party tip is suggested by kumquats looking like little Easter eggs. Before your guests arrive, hide a dozen kumquats around your home. After people have had a few drinks, announce that they are going on a kumquat hunt. As the hunt proceeds, some will exult as they find and eat kumquats. (Your guests will take deep satisfaction in enacting the ancient human rite that you eat what you kill.) Those who are shut out will become increasingly agitated, and when there are only a couple left, their frenzy will build until they are tearing your place apart as they frantically search for a kumquat. After the party, you can use the level of carnage and destruction as a measure of the quality of your party. Perhaps songs will be written celebrating your orchestration of the great kumquat hunt.

Note to gluten avoiders: Kumquats can be used to make a gluten-free flour.

Note to connoisseurs of gracious living: Add class to your drinking by substituting a kumquat for a twist or an olive in your martini.

        

The Fruit Explorer Encounters a Sour Orange

To All,

While skylarking through Market Basket I happened upon a sour orange, which I don't think I had ever heard of. Once at home with my prize, I went to https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/sour_orange.html to see what this fruit was all about. I was taken aback to read, "The normal types of sour orange are usually too sour to be enjoyed out-of-hand." Uh-oh. I might have misfired on this one. This article goes on to say, "The greatest use of sour oranges as food is in the form of marmalade and for this purpose they have no equal." Further reading revealed that this fruit is a soap substitute. A further bad sign is that there are no You Tube videos on sour oranges; not even the fruit apologists have a good word for this fruit.

Needing to go further afield than usual to find information, I found that WebMD has quite a bit to say about the sour orange at http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-976-BITTER%20ORANGE.aspx?activeIngredientId=976&activeIngredientName=BITTER%20ORANGE. It is used to treat fungal infections like ringworm and athlete's foot. The folk medicine types "...use bitter orange flower and its oil for general feebleness, 'tired blood' (anemia), impurities of the skin, hair loss, cancer, frostbite, and as a tonic." Moreover, "In aromatherapy, the essential oil of bitter orange is applied to the skin and also inhaled as a painkiller." Returning to the sober side of medicine, it says, "Before taking bitter orange, talk with your healthcare professional if you take any medications. It can interact with many drugs....Bitter orange has many chemicals that affect the nervous system. The concentration and effect of these chemicals can change depending on the part of the plant and the method used for preparation. These chemicals can squeeze blood vessels, increase blood pressure, and cause the heart to beat faster." There is the further curious information: "Because the fruit is so sour and bitter, it is rarely eaten, except in Iran and Mexico."

Well, maybe my sour orange is not the "normal" type. Maybe it will be tasty. I peeled it like a regular orange, popped a wedge in my mouth, and made a series of cartoon faces as I was assailed by the most penetrating sourness intertwined with a full bouquet of disgusting flavors. It's even worse than the gunk you drink before a colonoscopy. Perhaps this is what an unripe persimmon tastes like. I hurriedly threw the remainder in the garbage and was glad to be quit of this repellent fruit before it had a chance to squeeze my arteries. I guess you have to expect contretemps like this when you explore among the off-brand fruits.

That is a dollar and a half down the drain.

I am at a loss why Market Basket would stock such a fruit. Surely there are not that many enthusiasts of homemade marmalade or practitioners of aromatherapy..

The verdict: A basket of sour oranges is what you give someone that you don't like but to whom you are forced to give a present.

The party tip is to hide the sour oranges before your guests arrive.

The main lesson from this fruit is that one should not take WebMD seriously. The remaining question is what is wrong with the people of Iran and Mexico.

We'll see if any of you spring to the defense of the sour orange.

More Fruit Explorer Miscellany

I have just learned that there is a Fruit of the Month Club. I do not plan to join it. The Fruit Explorer would prefer to go on safari through Market Basket, Stop&Shop, and Trader Joe's rather than be the passive recipient of some pre-packaged fruit. Here we have an example of the proverb that one does not go on safari from one's recliner.

You have read of my disenchantment with the ataulfo mango, and you have read of one unhappy experience with an unripe standard mango. I have two more encounters with a standard mango to report. First, I had a fruit salad with standard mango prepared by Maria, the mango whisperer. The mango in the salad did not appeal to me though everyone else was raving about it. Second, Mei-Mei gave me a perfectly ripe mango. It was orangeish yellow with a big red splotch and not a trace of green. I cut off a slice, scored it, and flexed it inside out. (I have mastered the technical aspect of eating a mango.) I chowed down, and found that I didn't much care even for this perfect mango. It finally occurred to me that mango has much the taste and texture of a peach, and I have never cared much for peaches, so I now understand why my reaction to mangoes differs from everyone else's. The final word: Mangoes of any stripe do not speak to me.

You will recall my starter garlic press from Target. Well, its handle fell off. I can stick the handle back on and press the garlic just fine, but the handle falls off again when it leaves my grip. Clearly, it is time for me to add a second garlic press to my collection.

I needed shampoo, and browsing the aisles at Dollar Tree I saw one with the impressive title, Alberto VO5, Herbal Escapes, Kiwi Squeeze. I figured that kiwis have earned a larger place in my life, so I bought a bottle. This is a reminder that fruit is for more than eating. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some fruit turned out to provide the cure for cancer. (Have I carried my enthusiasm for kiwis too far? Does kiwi really belong in shampoo?)

What is happening to our crops? My favorite fruit is the large navel orange. Traditionally, they are available from mid-January until late April. This year, I started finding good ones in mid-December. On July 8, I went to Trader Joe's, and they were still being sold. Thinking that this might be the last batch of the season, I bought eighteen. When I open my fridge, it looks like there is an orange tree inside.

In reading about the various fruits, one invariably encounters the statement, "high in vitamin C." This property of fruit, however annoying to read over and over, has significance in the evolution of the human species. It is a fact that our pre-primate ancestors had the ability to synthesize vitamin C. Therefore, they never had to worry about vitamin C deficiency or scurvy. When the early primates evolved, they specialized in eating fruit. Because fruit was so high in vitamin C, they did not need the ability to synthesize their own. Since evolution follows the use-it-or-lose-it philosophy, they lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C. Humans still have the genes for synthesizing vitamin C, but they have been mutated into uselessness. Now that we no longer specialize in fruit and sometimes do have trouble getting enough vitamin C, you might curse our early primate ancestors for fumbling away this valuable physiological capability. Not so fast. It is thought that the ability to spot fruit and to distinguish ripe from unripe fruit led the early primates to develop color vision, which their ancestors did not have. Therefore, the fruit-eating lifestyle of early primates led to the loss of the ability to synthesize vitamin C but also to color vision. I would say that our early primate ancestors made a pretty good trade-off. I tip my hat to them.