Shortly before my 10th birthday, two friends asked me what were my favorite fruits. I named a bunch of tropical fruits, including durians (a couple of which are pictured hanging from a tree above) and mangoes. For some reason that I couldn't understand at the time, my answer displeased my friends, who then proceeded to rephrase their question to "What are your favorites of the fruits we can get here?", with "here" at the time being England.
After some thought, I told them "strawberries and bananas". This answer satisfied them and the subject was then promptly dropped, something which puzzled me further... until the day of my birthday when their family brought a pretty neat birthday cake to the house that was filled with... strawberries and bananas!
Many years on, I still remember that birthday and cake. And I still love strawberries, bananas, durians and mangos -- but also have added a whole bunch of other fruits to my favorites list. Put another way: I love a whole range of fruits -- and I like them fresh, candied (like the sticks of hawthorn berries in the top most photo on this blog entry), in drinks and many other ways!
At the same time though, I have to admit to being unwilling to pay exorbitant sums for unusual sized, shaped, etc. fruits (like the extra big watermelon in the middle photo above) the way that the Japanese are famously willing to do! Still, I do find those fruit interesting and neat enough to want to take photos of. (And, all in all, it's been kinda amusing -- as well as neat -- for me to find out how many fruit photos I have when rooting through my photo archive for Sandi's and Gattina's Photo Hunt this week! ;b )
17 comments:
It's been a long time since I tasted a candied hawthorn berry!! Cannot find in Singapore. One of my childhood favourites!!
Awwww what a sweet thing your friends did and a great childhood memory :)
Neat juicy takes!!
It's a lovely childhood memory! I remember when a mango was a luxury in Europe, now they cost 1€ a piece, lucky us :)
What a kind gesture to offer you this fruit cake ! I love watermelons too, we mostly eat them in summer when it is warm.
Hi EastCoastLife --
Sticks of candied hawthorn berries aren't that common in Hong Kong either. So I was really happy to spot them -- and yes, buy one to eat -- at the Chinese New Year Flower Market this year. :)
Hi Sue --
Wasn't it just?! ;b
Hi magiceye --
Yep! :)
Hi Marcy --
I'm sure one can find mangoes and even durians -- the latter in London's Chinatown, if no where else -- in England these days. But yes, for a price... ;S
Hi Gattina --
It was a pretty neat gesture, huh? Re watermelons: I love drinking watermelon juice. :)
Hi YTSL, I love your birthday cake story and take for this post. Wonderful photos and now I have an craving for sweet watermelon.
Have a great weekend.
Great take on the themes. I love the story about your 10th birthday.
Hi Trekcapri --
Thanks for visiting, reading and looking as always. Hope you have a good weekend too. :)
Hi Carver --
Thanks for liking the story. I'm glad this week's Photo Hunt themes gave me an opportunity to tell it. :)
TW likes fruit also but her cake has to be chocolate. Neat pics.
What do durians taste like? I know I looove mangoes, strawberries and bananas!
Never tried the sticks of hawthron berries before. Althoguh I have it countless of time on TV drama.
Hi Cathy Keisha --
I like chocolate but get the feeling that I'm not as much of a chocolate lover as many other inhabitants of this planet! ;b
Hi Andrea --
I think of the taste of durian as sweet and creamy -- but others have been known to disagree with me on this! ;b
Hi Aiyah Nonya --
The first time I saw those sticks was in a 1990 Hong Kong film entitled "Red Dust", starring my favorite actress, Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia. The first time I tasted them was, strangely enough, in New York Chinatown! ;b
Great memories... or should I say Neat memories ;-)
Happy Hunting ~
Great photos! I love the durian silhouette. I also very much enjoyed your story of your 10th birthday cake. So fun to imagine your puzzlement!
I'm sad to say that I still haven't tried durian! It was on my to-do list for both my trip to Hong Kong, and then my subsequent trip to mainland China, but I didn't manage. (I think I was intimidated to learn that many hotels do not welcome having the fruit brought in!) But I was very happy to try mangosteen, which was delicious! And dragon fruit, which was neat to look at, if largely lacking in flavor.
If I had to pick a favorite fruit, I'd be hard-pressed. I love so many of them! In the US, a lot of fruit is bland, unless you get it in season, and locally. So where I live, I love fresh-picked blueberries, strawberries, peaches and apples. In California as a teenager, I loved to go blackberry picking, and the apricots were amazing, too! In Brazil, I was crazy for the flavor-packed tiny bananas, and the many kinds of mangos. (Now I'm making myself hungry. And now there is no more local in-season fruit! The apples have already long passed their peak.)
I also wanted to wish you a happy blogging anniversary, since I know we share the day! You are one of the blogging friends who has so richly contributed to my blogging life, and to my life outside the blog. I'm so happy to have met you!
I'd love to try those hawthorn berries, a fruit I've never heard of. I like how the watermelon looks like it's on a throne. :)
Hi Sandi --
Thanks for reading, and I'm glad you thought my take on the themes was neat rather than on the fruitcake side... ;b
Hi Alejna --
If you had durian in Hong Kong or mainland China, I'd imagine it wouldn't be great durian. Better to wait until you go to Malaysia to try it! ;b
And re the blogging anniversary: what a shock to realize that my blog as well as yours has been going for seven years now! And I'm really happy we've got to meet in meatspace as well as cyberspace. :)
Hi Annie --
I wonder... do you live anywhere close to a Chinatown? If so, you could try going to a grocery store there and trying some haw flakes as a substitute... ;b
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