Fruits and vegetables

In today's globalized market, so many fruits and vegetables are transported and consumed worldwide that it is easy to forget that it is difficult or impossible to taste quite a lot of things, or at least good examples of them, unless you go where they are growing. Travel is a great way to expose your palate to new delights. Even if you've tasted them before they probably cook them differently there.

Some fruits and vegetables only grow wild and must be gathered on the spot. A good example is Rhodomyrtus tomentosa, sometimes called rose myrtle in English and known as kemunting in Malaysia — a bush that grows wild, and in season, produces uniquely delicious little red or purple berries. You probably won't be able to buy rose myrtle berries in stores or at markets; instead, you may need to know where to find the bushes and be there at the right time to gather some berries before the birds eat them all.

Cashew trees, on the other hand, are cultivated, but in order to eat the young leaves, you are really best off picking them off a tree yourself (with permission from the owner), because once picked, they deteriorate very quickly and are therefore impossible to export from cashew-growing regions and quite sub-optimal even when bought in markets in the region. The mangosteen is a delicious fruit native to and cultivated in Southeast Asia. Mangosteens are exported overseas, sometimes in fairly good condition, but they are smaller and not nearly as juicy as the ones you can get easily at markets in their part of the world.

And then there is the banana. Even if you've never been to a banana-growing region, you probably think you know what bananas are like. However, the bananas you are likely to get in temperate zones were removed from the tree way before they were ripe, in order not to have rotted by the time they arrived in your local supermarket. And once they got there, they were probably in one or two varieties at most and perhaps a bit mealy. Even if you think you don't like bananas you've gotten in temperate zones and even if they upset your stomach, consider trying some that were picked off the tree when fully ripe and delivered to market the next day. You'll find them in several varieties, with some tartness as well as sweetness, no mealiness whatsoever, a wonderful taste, and they may settle your stomach.