Hey so this is an exciting one.
I am going to talk about dragon fruit, or pitaya.
Now these are pretty boring for me because I eat a lot of these.
They sell them in Chinatown in New York
and they're pretty common and fairly cheap
if you get it in the right season, but the fun thing about
the ones I found here in Malaysia is that there are red ones.
I mean not red on the outside, but red on the inside.
There are three varieties of pitaya,
There are the most common ones,
they look kind of like this on the outside, but on the inside they're white with black seeds.
This is one that's red on the inside with black seeds. There's also one I've never seen before
called a yellow pitaya which is yellow on the outside and inside is white with black seeds.
The red ones are much more flavorful, in my opinion,
than the white variety. The way you can tell is...
Tell if they are red or white dragon fruit
Is because the red ones are more round. You see how this one is very round.
The white ones will have more of a point to them,
a little more oblong,
so look for ones that are roundish. They also have very
tight little... what the hell you call these things, little flaps here this...
These little scaly things, they are tightly together.
On a white one they're more spread out.
Actually want to do a comparison of the red ones and the white ones together
but...
The magic land that Malaysia is the only red ones everywhere.
I've seen the white ones but I went out to
find white ones to do this this review and I couldn't find any.
Anyway, to give some more information that I've found looking up this fruit
Some interesting things about it are
this is from a cactus.
The cactus flower of the pitaya is
nocturnal blooming. So it's pollinated by bats,
how cool is that? Here's some gross facts about it
The red one in particular, if you eat a lot of it, turns your pee and your poo red.
Yay!
Also, another gross fact is that
the seeds inside this thing are indigestible
and there's accounts that native
Californians and Arizonians
used to have what they would call the
"Second Harvest" because there was not a whole lot of
fruit growing. So they really prized these things. So they would eat them and
then when they pooped, they would dry out their poop,
pick out all the little black seeds
(because they don't digest),
grind them into a flour and eat them again.
I'm not going to show you what that looks like,
but I will show you what this looks like on the inside.
I'm gonna cut into this guy.
(chopping noises)
I really like these. Look at that, look at how pretty that is
and...
let me just cut of wedge.
They're very like...
different ways you can eat these.
Sometimes I'll just like buy one at a market and just peel the skin off on the outside,
and just eat it like that,
but this one I'm gonna cut into a wedge.
(cutting noises)
You see the skin peels like right off of it. They're very
convenient fruits. They're like peelable, the only annoying thing is that they do
tend to dye skin and fabric.
I haven't actually-- haven't had a red one in a while, let me...
Yeah, this one actually has a good scent to it.
the white ones don't really have much of a scent.
Doesn't smell like much, it's just like a...
slightly
sweet smell?
They're good. They're very, um...
another one that's kind of hard to describe,
especially because it's um...
It's a unique flavor and it's mild.
They don't have a very strong flavor.
They're not citrusy, like hardly at all, but they're very sweet.
Especially the white ones are not...
Don't even have like a whole lot of flavor.
They're just like, sweet tasting.
So what I do is, when I have the white ones
I put like a little bit of lemon juice on them, or
lime juice and it like brings out the flavor.
On a red one, I don't think you really need it.
Like they do have a little bit more flavor.
It's got like something kind of like a kiwi taste
or like a-- maybe like slightly like a melon taste, let me try some more.
Yeah not a whole lot of flavor here, but they're very refreshing.
They've got the texture of...
kind of like a kiwi. I mean people usually relate them to a kiwi in a lot of ways.
They also have little...
black seeds. Kind of remind you of that.
But that's um...
about all I have to say about these.
Go and uh-- go and find this. This is a
dragon fruit, or a pitaya.