market report

Number of tomatoes per heap increases each week, price steady at 50c/pile

Leafy greens are plentiful, with lettuce a hot favourite among the expats, but too expensive for the locals at 50c a bundle. Early season watermelons are expensive, lack flavour and are seedier than the back streets of Bangkok. Pumpkins on their way out, carrots just arrived, coming in at a costly 

$1 per bunch.

Hand harvested sea salt virtually free. 

Beans in abundance, but how many beans can one eat per week? Only 50c/bucket.

Small red chilli only for those with tolerant, or dead, tastebuds.

Spices by the cup or in painfully small packages, shrivelled ginger and balls of fresh tamarind, 

20-50c each. Bugger it, just get the MSG it's cheaper. 

Cold donuts with rank margarine and sprinkles, or deep fried dough balls with fluorescent sugar frosting, all going out at a bargain 5c each. 

Triangles of tasteless glue and seaweed, useful for fixing surfboard dings or illuminating the dark, 

5c each.

Organic shallots for the patient cook who can be bothered skinning and chopping them, $1/tin.

Unidentified balls of boiled dead animal on a stick, price unknown. Limes steady at 4 for 50c, while bunches of kankung persist as the best value green, 50c/bunch.

pomelo

Certain things appear at the markets one week and the next they are gone, so we don't get too attached to a new fruit or vegetable, thinking that it will be a staple every week. One such arrival was this giant pomelo. They are big fellas with thick skin and hard seeds. It's grapefruit like flavour provided an extra zing and colour to our salad. 

prodigal mango returns

Just when we were mourning the end of the mango season and the return to Timorese two-fruits, we had a fortuitous meeting with a local who told us his backyard tree was pregnant with goodness. For less than A$8 we received a basket full of fruit bliss. 

Tom scoffs his like the wild man of the jungle, while I prefer the dainty spoon technique.  Whatever the method, we recommend you eat mangoes naked.

it takes two arms

To handle these whoppers. The biggest papaya of the season, home delivered to very satisfied customers.

A$2.50 each

A most satisfying and nutritious lunch.  Papaya, mango and banana, with a squirt of lime.  

strange fruit

 I saw this strange fruit at the markets and had to buy it for investigative purposes.  The locals tell me it is a type of guava, however I can't find a single image or description of it on the web.  It has a pungent smell that intensifies as it ripens and stinks out the fridge; something between lilliums, vanilla and rotten bananas.  The flesh is soft, and the initial taste is pleasant enough, then it makes your mouth pucker as the sour notes kick in.  

The seed is the grey thing on top and apparently tastes like a peanut when roasted.  Can't say it will be making a return visit to our fruit bowl.  Tom hated it, and Bo Diddly took one lick and left it alone.  Even the pigs weren't interested, and for an animal that eats hermit crabs whole, that is quite a statement.