And what, pray, is a wampee? First off, let me ask you: did you grow up in North America? Then you’ve probably never eaten one; in fact, you’ve probably never seen one. There’s a slim chance you passed by some in a Chinatown or West Indian fruit market and ignored them because they’re not flashy like dragonfruit or famous like passionfruit. But you were missing out!
My parents struggled home on Saturday with two huge bags of this incredibly rare and delicious little fruit (which we know as ‘guinip’ in the Caribbean), and we scarfed down the entire thing in one day. Al and I haven’t seen them in - oh, I’d say about six years. They’re about as big as a cherry tomato, and the skin is thin and pliant. I can’t think of any analogues to western fruits, unless there’s one out there where you bite into the skin only until it cracks under its own tension and reveals the goods.
This is what it looks like before you bite into it:
And this is what it looks like after you get it open:
The flesh inside tastes like a cross between a Strawberry-Kiwi Starburst and a Sour Cherry Blaster, but there’s only a thin layer of it around a huge seed. Result: you can eat about 150 guinip before you feel even slightly full.
Well, that’s today’s tropical fruit lesson - and also a nifty experiment to see how well my camera’s macro setting works. Uh, but for more wampee information, you can go to this Purdue University site.
Your new camera’s macro function works phenomenally. (Though they probably could stand to be resized to something other than “IMAX-quality” for this blog.
I noticed there’s no wampee entry on wikipedia, so I elect you to start one, including the encyclopedia-quality photos.
Anyway, judging from the pictures alone, it kind of reminds me of lychee. Though I forget what those taste like…
Bah, you know what I think about Wikipedia.
Also, as for the Imax-quality size of the photos, would you believe they’re small when I look at them at home (on my laptop using Firefox) and huge when I look at them at school (at the school computers using IE)?
What’s up with that?
Yes, but will it blend?
It would be great to add a bit more content to Wikipedia. A slightly modified version of this post would be good enough as a starting point.
Oh, and it looks smaller on Firefox because images start out scaled to fit into the window. You can click on the image to zoom to its full size.
Mmm, they do look tasty and yes, kinda remind me of lychee.