India_2015- Malay Market

Malaysian food is a multiethnic mix that's eccentric and different from the norm to me. 

We took a stop at a local market to check out the fresh produce, and I had no idea what I was in for. There were 6 new fruits we bought and tried. Most of them I loved, while some of them gave me an allergic reaction.

In this picture alone, there are four new fruits I tried. All the way in the back (green fruit) is a soursop. It's cousins with the durian and the jackfruit. 

The brown balls in front of the soursop is known as the langsat. These have a thin, peelable shell, with flesh and seeds inside. Not literally flesh, just a hard-jelly-sorta-substance that tastes a little like lychees. 

Next, the purple fruit right in front of the langsat is named the mangosteen. Once you peel the purple layer, there's a fibery-and-juicy white flesh inside that also has seeds. They reminded me of a garlic clove because of the way the flesh looks inside. And the mangosteen is supposed to have great nutritional benefits. 

Right on top of the mangosteen is a box of jackfruit. Jackfruit was the one that left me with a disgusting itchy mouth.

The craziest fruit I heard about that night was the durian. If you guys don't know what the durian is... I suggest you expand those horizons as soon as possible because the durian is the bomb. Sort of literally... it smells so bad, it's banned in some countries and public transportation. I mean, there are signs in metro stations that say, "No smoking, No flammable goods, No durian". Haha, that's apparently how bad is smells to some, but it smells fragrantly sweet to others. So durians look like jackfruit, but more jagged/spikier (it's a far cousin of the jackfruit). It's also setup like the jackfruit inside but the durian has it's differences. (The durian aka the endurian in plants vs. zombies 2)

In this picture is the rambutan. At first glance, the rambutan looks like a sea urchin that is genetically modified to have softer spikes. But once you peel that skin (easy to peel),  you get a delicious and sweet-honey flesh that also tastes like a lychee. I loved this fruit the best. 

Sooo names of the fruits I've mentioned: soursop, langsat, mangosteen, and jackfruit, durian, and rambutan. 

This is the sugarcane juice process. I didn't want to go back to America without having a glass of sugarcane juice, so I made sure we had some before leaving. This is the way to squeeze the juice out of the cane. They just run the stalk into the machine, which squeezes and crushes the stalk until all the juice comes out. If you ever get the opportunity to try one, don't pass it off. Expand your horizons.