If you watch Ugly Betty then you should've seen the episode when Betty has to write an article to be included in the Mode's upcoming "Sizzling Hot" issue and stumbled upon a 'blog' about a local fruit from Brazil. By which happened to be written by the Victoria Secret supermodel, Adriana Lima, on the 'super-rare' fruit that she swears on the delish of it - grown on her grandfather's farm as a young girl, indigenous to her home country and known primarily by locals is the sweet secret behind her sexy success. And the fruit is called tico berry. The sweet, juicy tico berry. :)
Well, fyi... the 'blog' is fictional, btw. And tico berry is in fact is not that 'super-rare'. Okay, maybe for those in the States, but not in South East Asia coz it's one of the fruit of the season nowadays here. And if you happen to realize, in that episode Betty also taste durian, the thorny fruit which is very stinky - in which the taste is like a cross between a custard and a rotten rat. Not that I've ever eaten any rat before, hahaha... but the smell is something like that. So pungently stinky! Eeew...
Anyway, I love that episode coz at least I gotta see Betty kick that Kimmie's ass out of Mode. And Adriana Lima - the heavenly beauty definitely looks stunning in that Oscar de la Renta dress. Though kinda weird to see someone posing with 'fruits' on the cover, at least it take the world by storm to introduce what kind of fruit a tico berry is.
So, back to tico berry. It's not really a berry berry like strawberry or raspberry. Not even a blackberry. Haha! The local name is rambutan - by which it originated from the word 'rambut', meaning 'hair'. Coz the fruit is kinda hairy. When my sister brought it home in the previous weeks, I was kinda jumped in joy coz at last I gotta chance to write about this 'tico berry' that people has been buzzing in the blogosphere.
How does it look? Well, the pix says it all. The red, hairy outer 'shell' with a clear, juicy flesh inside. If the 'hair' is longer then it's normally called rambutan as I mentioned before, whereas if it's shorter, they're called pulasan. But anyhow, they taste the same. Kinda like lychee or longan - with that sweet, juicy taste (but sometimes quite sour). You've gotta crack the 'shell' open to 'reveal' the flesh inside. When I said 'crack open', no... it's not like coconut. This one is soft enough, that with a gentle twist you can eat the fruit easily. Oh, beware. Sometimes when it become 'super-juicy', it tends to 'sprout out' and you'll get messy! Just so to let you know too, rambutan is a great source of vitamin C. And that's why it'll make your skin oh so beautiful..ahaks! And another important fact - this fruit is very diuretic, eat more then you'll definitely make an endless 'journey' to the loo... =)
While Adriana mentioned that her grandad grew this fruit back in his garden, here my grandma has quite a number of rambutan trees at her backyard. And it's so fun to see during the harvest season, where the green leaves are taken over by the 'red' fruits all over. Kinda like Christmas tree, with all the ornaments and stuff; but a different one. :)
So, next time when you wanna know what's a tico berry is... you can get it from this blog. A real blog. Not a ficticious one. =)
