It is an axiom as old as my grandfather’s beard – which he inherited from U.S. Grant during the Great Seltzer Water Scandal of 1877, which historians now say was caused by bad plumbing and a stick of chewing gum – that before you can eat rambutan you have to buy them. This is such an elemental truth in tropical places like Thailand that I’m surprised it hasn’t been made into a TV reality show. But then again, maybe it has; I’ve been living in Thailand for over a year now, without any cable access, and I’ve almost forgotten what Homer Simpson sounds like.
To buy rambutan you have to go to the market. To go to the market you have to have transportation, unless you are one of the lucky few who live within walking distance of a market, and in Thailand “walking distance” is considered to be about ten feet only. After that, the Thais want wheels; either a bicycle or a bus or a motorcycle or a car or perhaps a water buffalo if one happens to amble by. The Thais are too smart to spend any amount of time out in the broiling midday sun, cooking their heads to a mush in the heat. They leave that kind of foolishness to the farang backpackers who keep showing up and walking around like zombies until they keel over from sunstroke or too many Chang beers.
As I was saying, first you have to get to the market. Once there, you have to find the rambutan. Unlike some fruits of Thailand, like pineapple and papaya, rambutan does have a season; when the season is past you can still buy them but the price is so outrageous that it causes most Thais to throw themselves under a charging elephant (and since most elephants in Thailand still do not own a credit card this can be awfully time-consuming.) I have no idea what the rambutan season is. Nor do I care. The only reason I’m writing this article is that I lost a bar bet.
The best way to find rambutan at the market is to ask for something else; that way your Thai informant will be tricked into saying something like: “To get to the coconut milk just turn right by that pile of rambutan over there.” Thais are notorious for giving wrong directions; they feel it is their duty to misdirect every person they meet, much like Houdini during a stage show, and send them blundering off into a pit of quicksand instead of the airport. That is why traffic in Bangkok is perpetually at a stand-still; everyone is going the wrong way, they know it, and so they’re in no hurry to get there.
You have to bargain for rambutan, as you do for most things at the market. The best bargaining strategy is to foam at the mouth when you hear the price and rip one of your ears off. This allows the vendor to save face and offer you the rambutan for only twice its cost, instead of three-times its cost. Your rambutan will be placed in a flimsy plastic bag – along with your ear – and you can then calmly march home. Chances are good that the flimsy plastic bag is going to break on your way back home and scatter rambutan to the four winds, at which point you should perhaps do a little bit more foaming and bite off the ear of a passing stranger. This explains why there are so many one-eared Thais running around nowadays. (The Bangkok Post says it’s a fashion statement; but what do they know?)
Okay. So you’ve got the rambutan home; now what do you do with the ugly little red buggers? If memory serves, I believe there is a picture of rambutan accompanying this scholarly article; take a good look and try not to tell me these things don’t originally come from Mars!
But, by the Great Horn Spoon, they sure taste sweet & crisp! There’s really only one way to open a rambutan successfully so you don’t smash it and get bits of the pit mixed up with the translucent fruit pulp.
But why should I tell you how to do it? Chances are you’re never going to be in Thailand, and if you do go to Thailand you’ll probably stay at one of those fancy-schmansy downtown hotels where the maids will open your rambutan for you – you old moneybags, you–I hope you choke on it! And that’s how you eat rambutan.
