Strange Fruits

While in Taipei, I was able to gorge on my favorite childhood fruits (that are largely unavailable outside of Taiwan). Here’s a picture of a Shi Jia:

Weird looking, no?! Its composition is hard to explain: basically, the fruit is filled with little pods of fruit flesh. Each pod contains a large seed, so it’ll require you to spit out the seeds. Here’s what it looks like inside:

And this is what looks halfway through the eating process:

I call it an ‘eating process’ because the thing takes a while to consume! When I was little, I’d scoop out each pod individually and eat it. Can you imagine how long that used to take?! Each Shi Jia probably has some 100+ pods inside its green outer shell. But I guess when you’re a kid, you’ve got all the time in the world anyway ;) I think it’s a genius way to keep children occupied (or fidgety adults for that matter).

* Insider note: use a spoon for the eating process.

Here’s my other favorite fruit:

This bell-shaped fruit is called Liang Wu. Its super crispy and juicy and makes a perfect snack on hot, humid summer days. And its very light and airy, so you can easily eat 4-5 of these things and not feel like you’ve eaten anything at all. Here’s what it looks like cut in half:

Liang Wus are really popular not just for taste, but also because they look really pretty when placed in bunches on tables. Great for when you have guests over.

I have more bizarre/funny pics from Asia to upload, will get to it as soon as possible! Until the next post then!