Tuesday, July 26, 2011

ASIAN FRUIT : The Good, the Bad and the Disgustingly Hideous

This is probably the greatest and most delicious food discovery I've made in all my adult years. This fruit is called "Hong Mao Dan" which translates into Red Hair Egg.

I find them in Chinese groceries once in a blue moon, but they're never as big as these I found in Thailand.

The skin breaks off pretty easily, like peeling an orange. You don't eat that part.

Inside is something which is about the size, shape and texture of an eyeball. Mmmm.... eyes...

It's very sweet and slightly tart, somewhere in the range of strawberry tartness. There's a seed inside. You'll wanna spit that part out. I've been told by my grandpa if I swallow apple seeds an apple tree will start growing out of my belly button. I don't want to chance that! Anyway, these are pretty delicious. I could eat them all day long.

Even though they sell the delicious Hong Mao Dan in Thailand, it is also possible to buy...... (shudder).... THIS!........

DURIAN!!!! (wretch!) Just look at it's prickly evilness!

Look at all of them laying there, like rotting, (gag!) stinking dead animals... (choke!)

I defy anyone to tell me there's a worse smelling fruit in all the universe. Even if there was a fruit called "Granny Smith bung apples flavored with infected pig feces" it couldn't top this. I can smell these things blocks away. When I walk, I mean RUN, past them and I'm blocks away I can still smell them in my clothes. The smell is like a mixture of rotting animal, spoiled and rancid sour fruit, poisonous hair permanent solution, Satan's fart after he ate something he was allergic to, and just some general extra rot thrown in on the side.
Mei and I got some popsicles on a hot day. I got cherry-flavored and she got durian-flavored. I'm not kidding I could not each my popsicle  because I kept smelling durian odor coming off her popsicle. I walked a considerable distance away from her and could still smell it every time I tried to take a bite of my cherry popsicle. Even if you try to man-up and brave something like that it just can not be done. I felt like a failure but I eventually flung my popsicle into the trash, and accepted the fact that I was just going to have to be parched.


These were pretty nifty. These Chinese characters are grown into the skins of the apples. I wonder if they put stickers on the apples, and the apples tanned in the sun, and then the stickers were removed leaving tan lines.

13 comments:

  1. Andrew Zimmern did a segment on 'Bizarre Foods' on the Travel Channel about Durian and just watching that left a bad taste in my mouth. I never tried red hairy eggs but had a chance when i dated a girl who lived on the border of Chinatown, lower Manhattan. I miss shopping there ! Bitter/sweet/tart from Nature is always amazing.

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  2. Lysdexicuss
    Yes, try a hairy red egg when you get a chance! You should like them.

    Also you are right to be sickened by the mere sight of a durian, even when it can't actually reach you, like on tv.

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  3. Jebus Christmas!
    Man, they have some very scary food over there in Asia...delicious as it is.

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  4. I saw Durian in a grocery store when I was in China. I thought they were Klingon pineapples. I mistakenly picked one up and the spines pierced my soft American flesh. They need a warning sign! Well, maybe there was one, it was probably in Mandarin.

    Everyone always talks about how awful Durians smell, but honestly I didn't smell anything when I was around them. Maybe you have to cut them open for them to stink?

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  5. Andrew, You are right. There are some pretty exotic sights on the dinner tables over there. It's pretty delicious, but very strange to our Western eyes.

    Bob, yes cutting them open is the key to releasing their sin.

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  6. " Satan's fart after he ate something he was allergic to" Brilliant, my friend, just brilliant.

    Those first pieces, the hairy, red things, must be like tearing open a Tribble.

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  7. Mmmmmmmmmmmmsweet hairy tribbliciousness!!

    I'm gonna have to try one of those!

    Not the stinky thingy though.

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  8. This is sign funny. I see they don't allow durians in some buildings..

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Singapore_MRT_Fines.jpg

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  9. Mykal, That description comes painfully from my heart.

    Jeff, I bet you'll love that hairy red egg if you can find it

    Kevin, that sign is hilarious!

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  10. Man those hairy red eggs look like something I might draw!

    Always entertaining,educational and inspiring visiting here.

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  11. Ha ha!! The DO look like something you'd draw!

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