Ode to the lychee

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Numero 6
Wednesday 5th December 2007
Tulear - Chez Lala
17:43 (UK) / 20:43 (Madagascar)

Today has been a computer intense day; 8am until now (with Lychee breaks). Working in this heat my brain is feeling too exhausted to write much, my eyes feel slightly crossed - I hope they’re not.

But anyways I thought I’d write about lychees today; I like them a lot and I’ve been thinking about them a bit- not the most commonly thought about fruit I bet, so I thought I’d give them a thought or two.

I like lychees - now possibly more than grapes, apples and carrots! Anyone whom knows me knows this is really saying something. (The carrots are good here though) My favourite foods for a long time now have been trumped by this pink egg shelled oddity. I think I like its oddness best: Crunchy on the outside juicy, flesh middle bit and a very hard centre bit - don’t try to eat that bit- I did and its not great.

I don’t know if you have ever looked at the skin of a lychee but it is one of the most amazing things. I am sure it was for protection that the skin evolved its dimpled surface, each dimple like a little mosque roof, and each stripped pink and yellow! Although the whole fruit is pink it actually has little yellow stripes - I think maybe this is left over from its immature form, but still this fruit is a little psychedelic throw back from the 80s and I didn’t even know until today.

You can peal the skin off in many different ways; in little bits (messy), in one long spiral (nice), peel the top off then squeeze the bottom so it pops out into your mouth (exotic) or you can peel the top off to make the bottom half into a mini swimming cap (for something very small…like a borrower). How would you peal yours?

The flesh is slightly wrong if you look at it too long - looks a bit too much like something from a sci-fi film- some egg of an alien species that like of thing. I prefer to not to look and just eat it Besides holding the fruit when it is just flesh exposed is 1-difficult as it is quite slippery and 2 - it feels wrong - the lychee is now naked. I think if I was in the UK nibbling may be a possible eating style, but here (where I worry about the cleanliness of my hands) I eat it all in one and in my mouth remove as much flesh as possible. What is fantastic about this is that some lychees have a really small inner bit- so you get loads of lychee! It is like when you get the ‘malteaser™©’ without the malt bit and you just never know when it is going to happen! Brilliant.

I like them. I like that they come on stick. I like that you get messy eating them and I like that they provide a challenge for a worthy reward. And best of all I love that you can by them everywhere here and that lychee sellers have little trolleys that the pull along the street with the baskets of fruit and a set of scales, and best of all you can get them for less than 60p /kilo.
Lychees. I love them.

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