Eat Local

Aloha,

         Since I have been on the Big Island I have been working up to writing one of my blogs on all of the unique food found around the island. So far I have accumulated a good number of local foods that I have tried. I have been absolutely dumfounded by the abundance of fruits on the island and let me tell you those of us on the mainland have no clue what fruit is. If you can, I highly suggest going to your market's exotic food section and looking for these fruits cause they are amazing. 

So here it goes!!! My very incomplete, for sure going to be added to, hopefully I can describe the food, food blog or I guess fruit blog, that I have been quite excited to finally get to put together :) 

Starting things off with a bang here, I gonna go strait for my favorite new fruit, Lychee. While at first I was very skeptical about this fruit with its rough red skin and very bitter outer peal, I was pleasantly suprised the sweet, juicy white flesh beneath. I soon decided I could not get enough of this wonderful fruit. I am going to fail in describing what lychee tastes like right off the bat here, I have no idea how to describe it. The fruit has a very distinct flavor that cannot be compared to anything I have ever had before. It is very sweet and a bit strong when you try it for the first time. The best part is not only does lychee taste wonderful but it is really good for you, containing more vitamin C than an orange and about the same amount of dietary fiber as an apple. 

The second fruit is the liliko'i also known as passion fruit, (momentary freak out because after looking at the flowers of the liliko'i plant I honestly think we have one in our yard, parents you know where it is!) This fruit comes in yellow (the type I had) and purple varites. It had a little bit of a sour hint to it but is sweet as well. The fruit looks somewhat like a lemon and when you cut it open it has many seeds suspended in a orange mucusy (ok probably not the best word choice) like substance. Practically everything from pancake syrup to ice cream is flavored with liliko'i here. 

While some of you might have had the previous two fruits I am guessing the next fruit is one you are not familiar with. Chico sapote, as a whole fruit is brown. To me it looked like a cross between a kiwi and a pear but the inside proved to show no resemblance. The inside is an yellow orangish color and the texture of the fruit is something between the mixture of custard and an a cooked spaghetti squash. While the texture was interesting the flavor was amazing, it was like eating juicy, refreshing honey put into fruit form. I was also told that there are different types of sapote, one of  my friends said he has eaten one that tastes like chocolate especially if you add a very small amount of coco powder, which supposedly brings out the chocolate flavor. 

I hate to cut this so short but I am off to my sharks lab :) Wish us luck! Hopefully we will catch some sharks to tag today!!!

Aloha