Exotic Fruit - How'd Ya Like Them Mangos
Sunday 3 June 2007 by Dr Maytel
In Singapore I recently had my first Indian mango...and what a revelation it was too.
Indian mangoes are squishy, sweet and delicately fragrant....they have a certain...perfume taste to them which makes them ten times a more exotic mango than your common all garden Southeast Asian mango, which are nice and mangoey but do not possess the same floral undertones as the Indian mango....overall I highly recommend Indian mangoes, they have lifted my enthusiasm for tropical fruits once again, just at the point when I thought there was little else to discover.
Another favourite fruit sampled in Singapore was durian, although Phil describes it "like eating vanilla custard in a latrine". I tend to think that people that say this have not had a perfect durian in season. I agree that out of season they can taste a bit like this, but in season they are like a warm sweet avocado with what I can only describe as a certain nyum nyum -ieness.
The smell that most people complain of is imperceptible to me. I am, it appears durian proof. So I bought one on the street in Singapore. I was all excited until Hock reminded me that I could not take it back to the hotel, in a taxi or on the train. So I opted to eat it on the street.
As I stood there nibbling on large fleshy soft chunks of durian a group of Indian women wandered past and peered inside my polystyrene container and I overheard one proclaim just within earshot
"oh I didn't know that they could eat that"
Indian mangoes are squishy, sweet and delicately fragrant....they have a certain...perfume taste to them which makes them ten times a more exotic mango than your common all garden Southeast Asian mango, which are nice and mangoey but do not possess the same floral undertones as the Indian mango....overall I highly recommend Indian mangoes, they have lifted my enthusiasm for tropical fruits once again, just at the point when I thought there was little else to discover.
Another favourite fruit sampled in Singapore was durian, although Phil describes it "like eating vanilla custard in a latrine". I tend to think that people that say this have not had a perfect durian in season. I agree that out of season they can taste a bit like this, but in season they are like a warm sweet avocado with what I can only describe as a certain nyum nyum -ieness.
The smell that most people complain of is imperceptible to me. I am, it appears durian proof. So I bought one on the street in Singapore. I was all excited until Hock reminded me that I could not take it back to the hotel, in a taxi or on the train. So I opted to eat it on the street.
As I stood there nibbling on large fleshy soft chunks of durian a group of Indian women wandered past and peered inside my polystyrene container and I overheard one proclaim just within earshot
"oh I didn't know that they could eat that"
how did she know you were foreign? were you wearing your "I Heart Aotearoa" cap again?
actually everywhere I went in Singapore I got funny looks can only be described here as a "where the fuck are you from" look. I know to most whities I look asian, but to most asians I look...well, just odd...
In fact the only place in the world that I have ever been mistaken for a local was in Japan.
I put it down to my pale complexion and bad teeth
haha but u don't have chernobyl teeth!!
i find that really strange...
maybe it's more normal to have half-japanese people in japan? (would never have guessed i'd say something like that - painting Japan as biracially inclusive)
As much as I'd like to take credit for the "latrine" line, I'm not that witty. Anthony Burgess wrote it.
i LOVED that line and wanted to dine with you immediately!