As I have used fruit to travel the world, I have come to one simple conclusion: Dope looking fruit does not make dope tasting fruit. 

The Durian makes your mouth taste like motor oil and your house smell like half an ass.

The rambutan (affectionately called the “butterfly berry” by my roommate) often tastes like a rotten litchi.

The common (white fleshed) dragon fruit tastes like a mild kiwi. Its not bad, its just not… much of anything. The red fleshed dragon fruits from central america (called sour pitaya) are awesome, very rare in the US, and possibly my favorite non citrus fruit.

This leads me to the topic of today’s discussion: the Akebi.

After I realized it wasn’t just a purple yam, I reacted the same way I did when I first saw purple yams: “that…. doesn’t look right.” 

After passing it by, I doubled back immediately. Purple fruit. Think about it. Purple Fruit. Thats some baller shit. If Samuel L Jackson was God, Adam and Eve would probably have been eating these. Then they would get force lightninged out of a window. ENGLISH MOTHAFUCKA! DO YOU SPEAK IT?!?!

My friend Yuri (blog shout) told me about this fruit before I left and of course, I promised to try it. Getting at the edible part of the fruit reminded me a lot of getting at a dragon fruit. First you split it. Then you get a spoon and scoop out all of the seed-laden flesh. Then you eat it. Not the cool purple part, the seedy semi-translucent part.

That part. I ate that. No bullshit. 

It was like eating a jelly full of seeds. A very very bland, only mildly sweet jelly. It really didn’t have much of a flavor other than bland. Maybe I’ll buy 50 of them and reduce the flesh down to a syrup to check if it has a real flavor…. Nah.