I don't know why I never bothered to before, but I finally bought a small knife so that I can buy fruit. If you only eat what is served ready-to-eat there are a whole range of interesting fruits you'd never eat. I had to go on the web to find out what some of them were. Like the Sapodilla. It tasted very sweet, as if it had been steeped in honey. I don't think I ever tased anything like it. Rambutans are similar to lychees. Pomelos are like mutant grapefruits (it's probably the other way, huh). It's amazing how location affects the value of something. Coconuts, bananas, and pineapples are so cheap and abundant they might as well be tap water. In street markets they find 101 ways to serve bannanas. They BBQ them, sometimes in the skin, sometimes out, fry them, make sweets out of them, sell them dried. Anywhere you go you can get chilled coconut with a straw for about 35 cents.
No matter how hard you try, you can't cook things 100% authentically at home because certain things are unavailable. Kafir lime rind and leaves are a main ingredient in many thai dishes. When I was trying some recipes in NY I found a Thai specialty shop in Chinatown that sold the frozen leaves but not the rind. Since it's not something that appears much in Chinese cooking you can't find them in Chinatown. You can import a lot of things but nothing replaces actually being here. There are so many unique herbs and ingrediants that are commonplace here. That's why a $1 roadside meal is so good. It's fancy to them to make a hamburger, it's nothing to them to whip up a curry.
Thai Fruits CLICK HERE
When I was with Vu, my friend fron Viet Nam, he wanted to eat at McDonalds. Since they don't have it in Saigon, he thought it was exciting and different. Interesting perspectives, right? To him, Thailand is this place to try all of this Western stuff and for me it's a place to get away from it. He thought the salad in the cup was interesting, but what really got him was the 1000 island dressing that came with it. He got really into it. I told him that that right there is the reason we are all fat and you are all so damn skinny, so be careful!
[This message was edited by Miss Understood on 02-17-03 at 02:47 AM.]
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