Perhaps the Best Reason to live within a few degrees of the Equator

It isn't as if I needed one more reason to love Bali. The "what's to love about Bali" column is chock-a-block (to use the New Zealand term), filled to the brim and overflowing. The funny thing about Tropical Fruit is that as a kid in suburban America, I associated these words with a chemically induced, too bright,  fuschia-colored Kool-Aid drink. And rattling around in the back of my head is the picture of a smiling cartoon character pitcher with legs that now makes me think they were going for the beer association in our parents. The flavor of Tropical Fruit is a familiar one for say bubblegum or name-your-corn-syrup-candy but I don't think I ever associated the flavor with actual fruit. Until now.

When I try to describe how different fruits here taste, it goes something like "an apricot crossed with a peach" etc... but of course failing miserably in capturing the essence of the actual flavor. I do pretty good getting the texture across. The snake skin fruit, Salak, reminds me of biting into a clove of elephant garlic, or so I would guess. Well, enough rambling and onto the actual reason for this post... Mangosteen.   Or manggis in Indonesian. Take out the two gg's and you have manis,  their word for sweet.

I'll skip the failed analogies here and just say that I read Queen Victoria offered up 100 pounds sterling to anyone who could could bring her a fresh one. They are quite simply my new favorite fruit. Easy to open. Easy to navigate the stones. None of the rind gets messed up in the fruit. I would venture to say you could easily eat this fruit in the dark at a movie. Lastly, the rich purple of the ripened mangosteen in contrast to the kermit green leaves is a Cezanne come to life.  I'm off right now to put a few in the fridge for a change. If this makes them taste any better, I'll have my first healthy addiction.