quicko: the rambutan

It all began with the little note and inauspicious fruit on my desk. The note read, "Kim -- Present from Tom! Can't remember the name of it but it's a fruit -- Bev" Why exactly people have taken to giving me various bizarre fruits is a bit beyond me, but it seems to be a fact of life here in Australia and I'm quite happy to sample them. At least they're not throwing them at me.


My present on this particular occasion, as we learned after no little amount of research, was a rambutan. It took me less time to figure out how to eat it than it did to figure out what it was called. (This, given my track record, really is saying something.)


Suspicion first ran to its being a lychee, but this rumor was quickly quelled (okay, you nitpickers will realize it wasn't "quick" but "eventually quelled" just didn't have the same ring to it) by the almighty Wikipedia, which eventually indicated (that's all right, hey?) it was indeed a rambutan, which happens to be called (we collectively determined) a lychee in the general Australian vernacular. Phew.


By this time of course the darling little rambutan was no more, at least not in the shape it had been in prior to meeting me. A rambutan, it seems, does not need any utensils to be prepared; fingers themselves are nearly extraneous! A strong overbite will do the job with ease, and by that point the work's well over half done. One must take care, naturally, not to swallow the seed, but it's noticeable enough that I thoughourly doubt many would mistake it for, say, a strawberry seed.


And that, my friends, is the story of the rambutan. I do hope you shall be so fortunate as to meet one some day yourself, but do pardon me if I am inclined to think my meeting was slightly more dramatic than most. All the best to you, though, of course.