I was born in Thailand and we lived there until I was 2 years old. My mom sometimes goes down memory lane and reminisces what our Bangkok lives were like in the early eighties. Mostly she talks about the culinaric delights, the lush variety of tropical fruits one could buy there for next to nothing: papaya, litchis, mangoes, longan etc.
I was too young then to remember what our fruit dishes looked like. I grew up on apples and pears in Germany. Though I've always been fond of coconut milk.
But I've finally made it to the tropics now. And maybe it's my turn to brag. My motley fruit collection comprises: papayas, rambutan, mangoes, various types of bananas, young coconuts, mangosteens (which were a REAL discovery), snake fruits, dragon fruits, durian and many more, some of which I don't even know the names of.
I sometimes ask Ibu Nunik to go down to the local market and buy fruits for me, like bananas. Bananas grow in bunches or “hands”. They can only be bought in “hands” too. You can't buy single bananas in Praya. I tried it, and everyone looked at me bewildered. Then they laughed (as they always do about us “bules”, foreigners).
Anyways, a bananas “hand” counts about a dozen bananas. That's quite a lot of bananas to eat, even in a small banana world. I ate up the first bunch of bananas very quickly so that they wouldn't start rotting.
Enter Ibu Nunik again. She figured that I was so fond of bananas she would buy me more. The next time she bought me 25. Again, I hurried to eat them before they spoiled. So then Ibu Nunik figured 25 wasn't enough and she scaled up. We're now at 45 bananas, to be eaten in under a week, which comes to over six bananas a day. I hope we put a tap on this gluttony soon, or it's death by banana for me. And no more bragging.
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