3 April 2010

Pickled Makok (Day In Supermarket) By Spectre


I was wondering around China Town in Birmingham the other day, and popped into this busy and fairly cramped supermarket. They always have some interesting odds and ends in there from the Orient. As I was sniffing around taking in the huge variety of sauce flavours, green teas, and strange looking delicacies I came to the pickle section. Now I love pickled eggs, I even have an irritating song for when I open the jar to wind up Cinabar with. I also love pickled onions, as they go especially well with cheese crackers or a feast of stuffed olives. Pickled Makok, what on earth is that? Suffice to say the name amused my child like nature somewhat, and a rather grumpy editor (Cinabar) forced me delete several rude comments, keeping the cleanest; “Whoops, I’ve pickled Makok!” An extremely reliable source has extremely reliably informed me that (okay, okay… but Wikipedia does have its uses…) Makok is the Thai name for the fruit that grows on the Spondias Dulcis flowering plant. There was also some mention of this being a sour fruit. Sour. Pickled. Oh, boy!

Now I’m always on the lookout for new snack foods, mainly ones that go with beer and crisps, that don’t make me fat (… because I’m already fat enough). A sour pickled fruit sounds like a blast to the munching senses. On opening the jar I tried to spike one of the hard green egg shaped little fruits with a fork. After some unsuccessful attempts I managed to put a Pickled Makok on a plate ready to eat. On the first bite I noticed just how hard a Pickled Makok is, so if you want to try it I recommend some sturdy teeth. The fruit is very crunchy and has a sour hit. I offered Pickled Makok around the room, but no-one seemed to want to try it. I was quite relieved to finish eating the crunchy sour fruit, and decided that this wouldn’t be my first choice of healthy snack. Pickled Makok are just too hard to eat, so I think I’ll stick to pickled eggs. At least I don’t get injured from the dumb song, like I did from some of the dodgy comments!
By Spectre

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Makok is called as 'Amberella' in Sri Lanka.
It is used in Curries. Makes it very delicious!
Or you can eat it with chili power (Cayan Pepper power) and salt.

Nessa said...

I love eating this pickled fruit right out of the jar! It is firm, but yields, like a good crunchy pickled cucumber might. But, if the texture is off putting when biting into a whole Makok, perhaps you should slice it as you might a cucumber. Thank you for the funny post!