Fruit of the Month Club III-IV

This month there are actually two fruits of the month: snakefruit and passionfruit. Although they’re common in Singapore, we hadn’t actually seen them up close until we broke into the fruit basket in our room in Bali.

Snakefruit is appropriately named; the reddish outer peel is thin and papery, with a rough, scaly texture on the outside. The piles of peel really do look remarkably like a shed snakeskin. Inside, it’s less interesting - a white, slightly crunchy fruit similar to a lychee, though not as sweet and somehow not quite as refreshing. Oddly, the inside is always divided into one large part and two small parts, like a lychee with two cloves of garlic attached.

The passionfruit looked innocently like an orange or a mangosteen on the outside, but I could tell it was different from the smell, which was oddly familiar though I couldn’t place it - and why was I suddenly thinking of Bath and Body Works? Then I realized: half their products are scented with passionfruit. So, waiting to see what this glamorous fruit would look like, I watched Joey press through the peel and...

Eeuurrggh!!!! The entire inside consisted of a gelatinous, violently green substance I can only describe as goop. Which was filled with dozens of tiny, crunchy seeds. Joey poked it with a spoon, and it wobbled a bit, so he tried to scoop some out. He pulled it, it stretched, he tried again, and it slipped off the spoon and snapped back inside the peel. I called the friendly guy at the front desk: “Can you really eat this stuff?” He laughed and said yes, even the seeds. So we did. And, as long as we didn’t think too much about the gooey texture or the horrible crunching sound from all the seeds, it was pretty tasty.

But I think it will be a long, long time before I buy a passionfruit beauty product again.