Fish Ice-cream Fruit

My friend Edna has her Mum visiting from Germany at the moment. She is staying for 3 weeks; so far one week has passed.

Last night, by chance we ended up going out to dinner together and fun was had by all I think, I say think, ‘cause Mum speaks not a word of English and Edna quite rightly got tired of translating. Not to mention, some things just don’t translate, ie. all the Father Ted references.

On the way to dinner, Mum had revealed that she had seen some strange looking fruits in the Chinese supermarkets and would like to go back and find out what they are. So we ended up in a supermarket, trying to understand what the lady behind the counter was saying to us about the fruit Mum was holding in her hand. This fruit was browny green, the size of my head, covered in spikes and smelled like a pair of used football socks. The little Chinese lady explained in broken English ‘it is good, nice than mango, cut like (here she demonstrated cut up like melon) scoop (another demonstration) and eat’. We also discovered it was called a Julian fruit. Only later, after a search on Google was it revealed to be called a Durian fruit.

Dinner was ‘all-you-can-eat-fajitas’ at a lovely little Mexican place in North Sydney. My hubby and I have been before and the owner seemed to recognize us so we asked after copious amount of meat, guacamole, salsa, cheese and tortilla if we could try our mystery fruit for pudding/dessert.

He was very obliging and whisked it away to the kitchen. It came back, cut into 4 on plates with little napkins and spoons. Edna was first to try and then exclaimed ‘It’s just like ice cream’. Mum followed and I don’t know what she said. I reserved judgement until about 6 or 7 spoonfuls in. ‘I think I’ve got it, it’s like ice cream, but it’s something else as well that I can’t quite put my finger on’. At this point, Edna pipes up ‘Fish!’

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