How to Eat a Passionfruit.

I have a confession. Even though I've been in and out of this region since 1998, I only learned to eat passionfruit this year. No, this is not a euphimism for anything else, I am really talking about how one properly eats a passionfruit. It's an interesting fruit when you look at it in comparison with the things we're used to, like apples and oranges. But then, that's like comparing... oh nevermind, too easy...

Anyway, passionfruit is very light. It's almost like a cardboard fruit. It looks very solid, but when you pick it up, it almost feels hollow. And when you cut into it, instead of getting a solid fruit that you can eat with your fingers, you instead find this gooey, slippery substance that just sort of slips between your fingers. Very difficult to eat.... IF you don't have a spoon handy.

So in the past, I've kind of shied away from eating it because truly I was kind of at a loss for exactly how to go about eating it. And, eating slimy things has never appealed to me much anyway. BUT, when I went to Cambodia, I was out for dinner with my friend in Phnom Penh and she taught me the right way to eat it. So, in case your wondering, this is how to do it...

Cut it in half. Not like you cut an apple, but in the other direction (the major and probably misguided assumption here is that everyone reading this cut their apple the same way, which is from the top, where the stem is, lengthwise, and splits it in half that way, so you need to cut the passionfruit, the other way). Then, sprinkle some sugar over the gooey bits on each side. Then, get a spoon, scoop it all out and eat it off the spoon. Absolutely delicious.

Did you think there was going to be some moral or point to this blog that I would eventually somehow relate to the process of eating passionfruit? No? Good. Cuz there is none. :-)