Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Fruits

I love how different fruits come into season at certain times here. Certain fruits in season then become ubiquitous and are sold in vast quantities at the markets, from the backs of trucks, and by the wee old grandmothers lining the streets. Not too long ago, it was "beh" season - which is the Asian Pear. It's big and round and absolutely goes against what my mind figures as "pear shaped."

In Korea, someone might describe their plans as having gone "pear shaped," and buddy listening would say, "Oh. You mean like a big apple?"
"Yah."

My favourite fruit seasons are strawberry (late spring) and watermelon (summer.) (By the way, watermelons here are round - not football shaped. I think the spherical form is preferred in Asia, perhaps.) My least favourite fruit seasons are grapes (they're always blue grapes...were they green, that would be another matter) and those stinky yellow fruits shaped like small footballs, (which blow my spherical theory.) Ugh, they're nasty.

Anyhow, all that to say that now it's persimmon and clementine time!
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Two bowls of them there clementines will run you 5,000 won on the way to my school.

Persimmons? Hate 'em. Clementines - love them!
So does my boss's son, who eats about ten of them a day and leaves the peels all over the school. I like trying to peel them in one piece. Then I put the skin in the garbage, because I'm civilized like that.
(Oh, see the peels on the table in the picture? My boss's kid must've happened by earlier!)

3 comments:

Kevin Kim said...

"...those stinky yellow fruits shaped like small footballs..."

Those are called ch'am-wae in Korean, but when people pronounce it quickly, it sounds like "chahmeh." Some Westerners mispronounce the name as "chummy," and quite a few Koreans understand this.

So sorry to hear you hate 'em... they're a midget relative of the cantaloupe and the honeydew melon. I like 'em a lot, so I'll eat yours while you, uh, spend your time ovulating.


Kevin

Maven said...

I always thought persimmonses always looked like not quite ripe tomatoes.

I am now fantasizing about clementine marmalade...

Maven said...

You've inspired me...

I bought a mini-crate of clems last night...