Recently, I was invited with my friends to visit an older retired couple that they knew for lunch about 30 minutes away from Calicut. They sent a driver to pick us up and we were on our way. It was a particularly hot day and when we arrived, the hostess offered us a nice cold glass of lychee juice, which was superbly refreshing. Then her husband, who is a retired doctor, offered to take us on a tour of his extensive garden. I never met a person who was more proud of their agriculture. And I have to admit, he had a ton of different plants, many of them bearing local fruits. However, did I mention it was like a sauna outside? I was disgustingly sweaty by the time we finished walking around. I thought I could ditch the tour early by telling him I was getting bit by ants, (which was actually true and I'm highly allergic to ant bites) but this did not deter him. He went inside, got me some socks, a pair of his shoes and some bug spray so that I could comfortably walk in the grass and continue the tour lol. So I geared up and went back to look at more of the fruits and vegetables. He picked things off every few minutes and offered us a taste. I was hesitant to eat them without them being washed but didn't want to offend so I tried to eat a bite of most everything. I never had tried fresh gooseberries before and good grief, were they sour! I had to spit it out...whew! At one point on the sweaty jungle tour, he picked off these tiny little pink seed like fruits and told me that they were called miracle fruit.
I laughed and asked him what that meant and he proceeded to tell me that if you suck on this fruit for a few minutes and then spit out the seed, everything you taste will then taste sweet. He said that is commonly used for people who suffer from diabetes, sort of as a placebo replacement for sugar. I told him I had to try it! When we finally wrapped up the tour and headed inside, his wife cut up some sour green mango and straight lime water and we each sucked on one of the seeds and sure enough, it totally worked. It was pretty incredible. I ate the mango and it was super sweet and the lime juice tasted like lemonade. Crazy right?! I told him I was convinced and he was so pleased to be able to show us something new. We soon after had a delicious lunch and I was even lucky enough to take home the leftovers. Thankful my friends brought me along for the outing. :) If you'd like to read about the fruit, follow the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum
I laughed and asked him what that meant and he proceeded to tell me that if you suck on this fruit for a few minutes and then spit out the seed, everything you taste will then taste sweet. He said that is commonly used for people who suffer from diabetes, sort of as a placebo replacement for sugar. I told him I had to try it! When we finally wrapped up the tour and headed inside, his wife cut up some sour green mango and straight lime water and we each sucked on one of the seeds and sure enough, it totally worked. It was pretty incredible. I ate the mango and it was super sweet and the lime juice tasted like lemonade. Crazy right?! I told him I was convinced and he was so pleased to be able to show us something new. We soon after had a delicious lunch and I was even lucky enough to take home the leftovers. Thankful my friends brought me along for the outing. :) If you'd like to read about the fruit, follow the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum
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