Fruits In Season

One Sunday morning on our way to Galle City, we passed by a make-shift street market selling fresh harvests from backyard gardens and farms of the local residents. The produce includes several types of fruits and a lot of vegetables. We pulled over to check around to see what would stir our interest and hopefully the appetite. We were fascinated by the available fruits that are in season and end up with a basket full of several kinds which are all very reasonably priced (a.k.a. cheap).

Our fruit basket included about 2 dozens of fantastic mangosteen. A big slice of jackfruit, some avocado, a medium sized of “guyabano” (soursop), some “santol” (wild mangosteen) and several pieces of “dayap” (lime). I mentioned above that the price is cheap. That is so true, the mangosteen for example was purchased at, hold your breath, roughly 4 pesos (Philippine) or about 8.3 cents (US$) each. Do you think it’s a good deal? Wait till I tell you that the slice of jackfruit is only 8 pesos (Philippine) or about 16.6 cents (US$). And the one shown on the photo below is only half of the slice. :-)

Everyone should eat a lot of fruits to stay healthy. Fruit is a good source of natural fibres which helps against corpulence, high blood pressure, and other factors that increase the chance for a heart disease. Unlike animal products, fruit does not contain much cholesterol which is not good for our bodies. Fruit is the ultimate brain fuel. Eating fruits has a positive effect on our brains and makes you recall information easier and faster.

The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context and is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. Many true fruits, in a botanical sense, are treated as vegetables in cooking and food preparation because they are not sweet. These culinary vegetables include cucurbits (e.g., squash, pumpkin, and cucumber), tomatoes, peas, beans, corn, eggplant, and sweet pepper. Some spices, such as allspice and chillies, are botanical fruits. In the culinary sense, a fruit is usually any sweet tasting plant product associated with seed(s) while a vegetable is any savoury or less sweet plant product.

While we are about to indulge into the sweetness of these wonderful harvest, our security guard knocked and gave us another interesting addition to our basket. Some pretty little wild guavas which he picked from a hidden tree somewhere in our own backyard.

We were amazed by the colour and size of the guavas. The red shade on the skin makes the fruits very appealing. Though they are so small that some are barely bigger than marbles, they tasted good and as we all know they are full of Vitamin C. c“,)