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RAMBUTANS
These tropical fruits are surely among the strangest looking edibleswe know. Evenmy dog
— anddogs are usually intrepid about food— cautiously approaches a rambutan. He’s not
at all surewhat it is, evenwhether it’s animal or vegetable, and youmight not be either,
for here is a sphere about the size of a golf ball that’s coveredwithpliable spines that
look likewiry redhairs. Not surprisingly, theMalayword rambutmeans “hairy.”
At first glance, rambutans don’t look as if they’d be edible, but break open the
leathery shell and inside you’ll find a smooth, pale, egg-shaped orb. It has a sizable
seed that you eat around then discard.What’s nice about the rambutan, aside from its
bizarre looks, is that you don’t really have to do anythingwith it. You can put it, once
freed from its husk, in a fruit salad of other tropical fruits— pineapple,
bananas, mangoes— and add a squeeze of fresh lime juice, and
it’s quite nice. Some prefer to cook it in a savory dish, turn it
into jam, or can it, but I think eating it just as it is probably
is the best approach for those of uswho don’t encounter
rambutan everyday, and that would bemost of us. If
you can get rambutans, chill them, then put them out
whole and let your friends and family find their own
way to dislodge the fruit within.
The charmof the rambutan lies in theprocess of
eating it. If you look carefully, there’s a seam that
runs around the covering. If youpull on it you
separate the twohalves of the skinand reveal
the fruit, or you can tear a littleholewith your
nail and squeeze the fruit out. If I hada
bigpileof rambutans, I’dprobably eat
them thisway. But because theyare so
special, I prefer to runa knifearound
the rambutan’s equator, thenpull off
the tophalf of the skin. The fruit is
revealed, protruding from thebase
from the remaininghalf.Whether
youhave just a fewor a lot, a
rambutanmakes anoutstandingly
exoticfinish toanymeal.
65
celebratedliving.com
FALL 2012
