Ramblings About My Life..

Very Berry-teresting!

Pardon the cheesy title. It was all that I could think of. If you can think of a phrase more befitting the title of this entry, please add it to the comments and I'll be sure to weigh your suggestions and perhaps even change the title to the suggested phrase. My nature-loving mum, who sometimes amazes me with the knowledge of edible plants from her childhood as a kampung girl, brought some interesting fruits back just two days ago after a visit to her friends. According to her, she had plucked the fruits from some plants growing outside her friend's house and that she had eaten them in her childhood. Somehow or the other, the part about plucking the fruits from a plant that grew outside a house in Taman Pelangi put me off the fruits a little. It's not that I have an aversion to local fruits. It's just that...well...Taman Pelangi isn't exactly known for its agriculture and who knows what might have been fertiliser, right? She insisted that they were Malaysian Raspberries. I had never heard of raspberries growing in Malaysia. She said that they were edible. I wasn't so sure. However, being the designated family guinea pig when it comes to interesting foodstuffs, it was my painful duty to sample the fruits that she had brought back.

The fruits in question were akin to elongated raspberries, deep red in colour and had tiny strands of who-knows-what poking out from the berries. Not the prettiest fruits, I might say, for they looked like a cross between a rambutan and a raspberry. Anyway, I just took one, threw it into my mouth and chewed. It wasn't much of a revelatory gastronomical experience - the fruits were a little sour, and tasted a little like strawberries. However, after sampling a few more fruits, I discovered that the fruits weren't too bad, actually. In fact, the taste was rather...interesting. And, of course, I'm still alive. Which means that these fruits are indeed edible. Hurray Mum! Now you've taught your son two kinds of fruits to eat in case he gets lost in Taman Pelangi and can't find his way to the nearest mamak stall (the other being the Indian Cherry, but that's another story)! I've taken a few photos of the fruits so that everyone can see what they look like - but don't go popping any lookalike fruits into your mouth!


Photos of the fruits - no flash.


Photos of the fruits - with flash. (note the hair-like protrusions from the fruits)

P.S. - If anyone can identify these fruits and provide me with their scientific name, I would be most grateful!

That's all for this entry! Ciao!

posted by yong chen @ 8:47 AM