While I was in Thailand, I tried to eat as many tropical fruits as I possibly could. They are much cheaper there. I had been dreaming of mangoes, mangosteens, lychees, longans and rambutans weeks before I departed for Bangkok. Alas, to my disappointment, apart from longans and rambutans, everything else seemed to be insipid this time round. Is it because of the floods a couple of years back that washes away the nutrients from the soil? I really don’t know.
Rambutans in Thailand are of the red variety. These hairy fruits have divine whitish sweet flesh. The rambutans we bought whilst in Thailand were gorgeous. The flesh was not too wet and came away easily from the stone. They were even more gorgeous chilled. I have not seen fresh rambutans here in New Zealand yet, only in cans (or maybe I haven’t looked at the right place). I think the fruits can be easily treated either with chemical sprays or heat treatment to comply with NZ bio-security and health standards. Many years ago, I had a chance to visit the orchard in Chantaburi, south-east of Bangkok. Nothing could beat the taste of ripe fresh fruits just plucked from the tree.
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