Bangkok fruit tasting: in the middle of exotic fruit paradise

 

Its not a secret that I am one big fruit junkie. Watermelons, peaches, grapes, cherries, pineapples, just name it....I love them ALL:-) So on my trip to Thailand I was very curious to meet&taste some more exotic to me fruits. And it was not very difficult! Bangkok markets are simply a fruit paradise: rambutan (first picture), jackfruit (second picture:being cut, third picture: right, already prepacked for sale), mangosteen (fourth picture) are just few of all yummy things I tasted (and purchased). 

Bangkok Fruit market  

This is how the mangosteen (top plate left), love apple and guava (top plate right), dragon fruit (down right) and rambutan look when they are ready to be eaten.-)

 

There are several different mango sorts and the ones below are ones of the best mangoes I have ever tried...Next on the list "to try" is the famous Thai fruit "durian" (in the left corner on the last picture). It supposed to be pretty stinky and one either loves it or hates it...I am curious:-)

The colourful market in St-Leu/ le marche de St-Leu, Reunion

 

Every time I am in a new place/city/country I love to go to the local (fresh food) market...In countries like France and its overseas teritorries the market visit is at the same time gourmet/ nature-discovering&people-meeting event! One can learn a lot about the way people live (and eat) when visiting the local market... During our vacation in Reunion island we went to the weekly market (every Saturday from 6am till 1pm) in the cute and cozy village St-Leu, where we stayed for around a week. Even if we went to the market around 7.30 am, the outside air was already very sticky and heavy (extremely hight air humidity)...

 

However I really enjoyed the bright colours of all local and exotic fruits. I have spotted some unknown to me veggies and even bought one new for me fruit, (tastewise between a melon and strawberry). The home-made soap stand was a great find too. All soaps were produced with local eteric oil and there were some yummy smelling products like choco-mint-soap or orange-lemongrass...

 

We found also forest mushroom, which we prepared later this day with rice in one delicious risotto!

La Réunion and its fruits...

Here we are, this time live from the French territory "La Réunion" in the Indian ocean. This volcanic island is situated between south Madagaskar and Mauritus island and is 63 kilometres long by 45 kilometres wide...End of december its like the beginning of the summer here, so a lot oflocal fruits are available. For first time in my life I have not only seen trees hanging down with kilos of litchis (known and called by locals "letchis"), I had also the big pleasure to go collect some myself with our local friend Jojo! Under the letchi trees some local wildlife (a frog and a butterfly were very kind to pose for a picture too). On the way back a mango-tree dropped few fruits for us...

 

Back from the letchi gardens I had another very important task: to collect all ripe passion fruits in the garden of our friends:-)) What a fruity experience...

Below you can admire the first evening sunset...sky changed in different colours within an hour, simply fantatsic:

More reportages to come very soon! Next will be the amazing "Jardin des parfums et epices"!

Autumn colours and quinces in Filstrof&Lorraine

 

Its again this colourful time of the year, when nature paints the world around us in all rainbow nuances and presents us with its treasures.

 

Orange pumpkins and golden apples, fresh pears and shiny yellow quinces-the autumn harvest is always a happy time...Quinces are really special nature gifts. Even if they resemble the apple and pear, their aroma and taste is completely different. I had enjoyed them in fresh pressed apple-quince-juice or in quince-gelee...Very exquisite fruit...some people even talk about it as the almost forgotten fruit...

 
I met also a cute field mouse...

Fico d'India (the prickely pear) & pomegranate: common Sicilian fruits

 

One spot them all around: in the gardens, next to the road, in the wild. The big cactus bushes are very green and very prickly! Do not collect its fruits without gloves or without pincer...Thats why the fruit "ficho d'India" means in Italian "the fig of India" and has the English name "prickely pear" (while the German translate it as "Kaktusfeige"):-)

Of course if you want to taste them without the adventurious part of collecting them yourself there are plenty of locals selling them. In some fruit shops one may even find them already pilled off. In a Palermo trattoria, where locals have quick lunch I had a plate of three "fichi d india" lovely cleaned and ready to eat as a dessert! The one that look greener actually tasted even sweeter than the other two!

Another common for Sicilian and exotic for the rest of Europeans (at least for the colder countries) fruit is the pomegranate. These fruits were already open in the sun and some thursty birds had enjoyed almost all fruits of the tree below!

Intro to exotic fruits+vegetables-part 3

As a continuation to the introduction to the exotic fruits and veggies in the French Antilles (from last year) I would love to present to you today the Xmas fruit/flower: "la groseille pays" (also called "le karkade"). The flowers are cooked in water and the obtained juice is very refreshing when served and consumed cold...

Below you can see the famous breadfruit (fr."fruit a pain"). It replaces the potatoes in the Caribbean cuisine. One may boil it or grate it (and then bake it in the oven as "gratin"). We tried the last version yesterday and it was extremely yummy.

 The other day I was lucky to find on the market in Marie-Galante some guavas. See how my fruits basket looks like today:-) Another new discovery is the fruit called "abricot pays", the one between the guava and pineapple (second picture below). The name in English is mamey apple (or Santo Domingo abricot) and its tree is a close relative of the mangosteen.

(the) unknown fruit: nespole/ loquats/ neffle du Japon/ japonische Wollmispel

It is never too late to learn/try something new...in Calabria i
saw/tried a new (at least for me and the rest of people with me)
fruit! It looks like an apricot, its juicy like a watermelon and
tastes like .....hmmmm... a mixture of melon, peach and orange?!:-)

This (unknown) to me tree, the fruit junkie, is home in southern parts

of Mediterranean Europe. Mostly like Calabria, Spain and Greece. It
originates from Southeastern China. Sometimes (and in some languages)
the loquat is called also Japanese medlar (for all Bulgarian readers
name should be "японска мушмула"). Japan is also the leading producer
of loquats (from January till June) and has been cultivating this
fruit for more than 1000 years!!! A distant relative of his is the
apple.The loquat is low in saturated fat and sodium, and is high in
vitamin A, dietary fiber, potassium, and manganese.

The loquat is an evergreen shrub or small tree and grows easily in

tropical till mild temperate climate. A big thanks goes to Michelle
for her picture of the loquat-tree above!

Intro to exotic fruit+vegetables -part 2

The carambola is a very beautiful fruit, which is mostly used for food decoration or for making refreshing juices (i confirm the last one). I found this carambola-tree covered with fruits in Les Saintes. Another funny thing here is the size of the avocados: they are almost twice or three times bigger than the ones I have seen till now:) One could be up to a kilogram! Even if mostly it is used for salads or salty dishes, the avocado is a fruit, and not a vegetable.

Something pretty new for me is "pomme d eau"(in French, see below), very lovely fruit at first sight, but it tastes watery and has no specific flavour. On the next picture you can see the half of the papaya I have enjoyed this afternoon, very sweet and much more orange than the ones we get in Europe normally.

The world of exotic vegetables is enormous. There are plenty of eatable roots. The most famous Christmas-vegetable is the "igname" (in English: yam), a brownish-black root, which is cooked and prepared as potatoes. I had some today for lunch, it was a puree in a glass in my plate (between the shrimps and the rice). Yams are high in vitamin C, dietary fiber, vitamin B₆, potassium, and manganese and because of all this they protect against osteoporosis and heart disease.

Another funny root is the "christophine" (in English: chayote), which looks like a white peer. It is served as gratin and has a very special taste (I personally prefer the yam:-)
Some other typical and widely used roots are the sweet potatoes (patates douce), which have rose colour.

Intro to exotic fruit+vegetables -part 1

At the UCPA (where we were staying in les Saintes till yesterday) we had Olivier, a very knowlegeable local, presenting to us the typical fruits and vegetables from the Caribbean. A huge basket was waiting for us. One of the most important fruit/raw material here is the sugar cane!It used not only for the production of brown sugar but also of the most famous drink in the French Antilles the rum.

A fruit i have never heard of is "pomme-canelle" (in English "sugar apple"), on the photo below. The inside consists of soft white flesh and seeds. There are also plenty of different bananas sorts: "banane plantin" for cooking, "banane figue" are very sweet and short bananas. Sweet pineapple and yummy passion fruit (or as they are more often called "maracuja") are some of the other fruits to be found here...

Almost every day we enjoyed fresh pressed juices and punches with fruits...very yummy...and to be continued:-)