(egg tapping)
(egg cracking)
(egg sizzling)
(melodic upbeat music)
- Hello, and welcome back to "Sorted Food."
Today we have Mike and Barry in the hot seat
and they will be taste testing some exotic fruits.
The question is, have they had them before?
And what would their normal palates make of them?
- You don't look excited by that.
- We're giving him free reign. - I know.
- And we have to eat whatever he puts in front of us.
So yeah.
- No vomit fruit or stinking toe today,
but four delicious treats.
(melodic upbeat music)
Let's begin, number one, lift the cloche.
- That looks like a table leg.
- Yeah. - Is it sugar cane?
- Correct?
- I've never held one of these.
- [Mike] No, I agree.
- I've seen them in the movies.
- Sugar cane is responsible for almost 80%
of the sugar that the world consumes
and it is the world's largest crop.
- Do I just nibble it?
Just nibble the end here? - Sure,
that's how you do it, mate.
So yeah, you can just chew it.
You don't really want to eat it, but you wanna chew it,
until all the lovely juice comes out.
- It's like chewing sweet wood.
- It's got sugar juice coming out of it.
- [Mike] You know what you chew a lolly stick?
- Yeah. - It's like that,
because the lolly stick has sugar on it.
- Yeah. - That's what it's like.
Okay, I'm just going straight down, no, this is good.
Heel of the knife? - Yeah, heel of the knife,
you can see the juice dribbling out.
- [Mike] Yeah.
- Whoa!
- I am strong. (Barry laughing)
- Okay, yeah, go with the grain.
Okay. (dish sliding)
That's what it looks like.
- With sufficient knife work,
that's what you can end up with.
- I never realised I didn't know
what sugar cane looked like inside until now.
- This is delicious, this is sugar.
- Do you know what? - What?
- It's not that sweet, it's the perfect amount of sweetness.
It tastes diluted, but it is still sweet,
but it's not too like, oh, that's so sweet.
Do you need a bib? (both laughing)
- It's so good, Barry's dribbling.
- In terms of its refinement then basically,
they take this and they scrape it
and then smoosh it to get all the liquid out?
- Yeah, a lot of it, like 50% of it
is still harvested by hand,
they set fire to fields to get rid of all the debris,
that also helps to put some of that organic matter
back into the soil at which point it's mangled or milled
to get the sugar cane juice,
which can be refined in things like molasses
to travel better distances or refined into sugar
and it can of course be fermented into the likes of rum.
So lots of process, lots going on
and there are various pockets around the world,
but all in the Tropics.
It grows really quickly, because it's a grass.
I think Brazil grow about 40% of the world's sugar cane
and some of that is for biofuel.
- So where's this exact one from?
- So this particular one comes from Uganda.
I mean, the reality is that in the past
and possibly in parts of the world still today,
there's been some pretty terrible practises,
sugar cane and sugar plantations was part
of the Trading Triangle that was horrific.
But the reality is 80% of the sugar we use today
still comes from sugar cane.
- That is really interesting, that's a good starting place.
I have hope for the rest of the-
- Delicious start. He's sweetened us up.
- He has sweetened us up.
(melodic upbeat music)
Ready? - Yeah.
Ooh, mini watermelons, yeah.
Oh, please say they're bright red inside.
- Oh, they're heavy, they are heavier than I thought.
- Well, they are little, tiny watermelons.
- They're bouncy.
- They're really cute.
- Can you bite one in half?
- It's like a diluted tomato.
- It's like watermelony and kind of like it's mostly water.
- Dilutedness, yeah. - Yeah.
- With the flavour of tomato,
but it's got a really, really hard skin to bite through.
- These are cucamelons, cucamelons are the kind of blend
and cross between a cucumber and a watermelon.
They're a really interesting talking point
in the sense they look kind of crazy,
because they don't look like anything
we've ever seen before.
- But they're interesting enough to make a video on,
right, they're cool, you look at them and go,
that is a little melon and that's cool
and then you bite into it and you go,
that's like a little melon tomato.
- [Barry] Maybe 'cause they're tougher outside.
- Oh, you're not wrong.
- Thanks, Ebbers.
- Yeah, that's the closest we get.
- Your opinion is (beep).
(both laughing)
- In what environment would you use that, a salad?
- So I think like they behave a lot like a cucumber,
so they're great for pickling.
- So where are these ones from, which part of the world?
- So cucamelons, otherwise known as little mouse melons,
originate from Mexico.
- Okay.
- So again, you can probably imagine them
going into a lot of fresh salsas and stuff like that
in the same way that cucumbers and tomatoes would,
but with that added touch.
- I would be fascinated to know
how people native to Mexico use them,
'cause that would be really interesting to me,
but they're cool.
- Nice.
- These particular ones are grown in the UK
from South African seeds.
- Oh, wow. - Oh, okay.
That changes everything for me,
because I'd feel really conscious
of having this thing shipped around the world
just so I can make my plate look pretty.
- Yeah.
- But knowing they're grown in the UK,
I'm kind of okay with that. - So you can pickle these?
- You can pickle them, they're nice in kind of salads,
'cause they look very decorative
or you could even just blanch them and cook them that way.
I have also seen them stuffed and like battered and fried,
a bit like stuffed olives, do a similar sort of thing
or as a garnish in cocktails,
you could even whack a cocktail stick through it
and stick it in like a martini.
- Nice.
- He's saying all of these delicious things,
but there's no food coming out demonstrating them.
- No, no, please. - What's happening?
- Some of the best fruits are just nibbled raw.
- Ah, that's lazy.
- Mother Nature in a bowl, that.
- Cop-out, move on, what's number three, better be good.
(melodic upbeat music)
- Number three, lift the cloche.
- Oh. (Barry laughing)
- I was hoping you were gonna be more excited than that.
- [Mike] That's not exciting, Ebbers.
- It looks like you were growing a strawberry
on your allotment and you just kept on going
and then it went rotten. - It looks like a cod piece.
(Barry laughing)
I reckon go right down the middle,
then we can see, yeah, see the cross section.
- I thought there might be a stone in it.
- I think there are seeds in it.
- I know what this is. - What is this?
- [Mike] But I can't remember what it is.
- We've had this, oh, no, no, no, no, jackfruit.
- No. - Oh, this is jackfruit?
- Damn it! - I think I know what this is.
- [Barry] What?
- Is this a custard apple? - Ooh!
- It is of the custard apple family,
but it's not a custard apple. - Oh, okay.
- This is soursop or guanabana, or Brazilian paw-paw,
it goes by different names, depending on where you are.
- [Barry] I've heard of paw-paw.
- But I think it's more soft and custard like
than fibrous like a jackfruit.
- Cheers.
Very typ- - Ooh.
It's so fizzy, it's sour.
Obviously, it's called soursop,
they're fizzy. - Oh, yeah.
The two things, it's like, whoa, hello.
- It's really tropical at the end.
- It's a bit like the two things you would never mix,
which is lemon and cream. - Yeah.
- It's lemon juice and cream., lemon juice and cream.
- It tastes really, really mangoey at the end.
- Oh, it does.
- Almost with a pineappley fizz.
That's fantastic. - Weird.
- The texture is creamy
and gives you a feeling of creaminess,
even though it's not actually creamy.
- But it has a zesty, lemony finish.
- Best to avoid the seeds,
they have a chemical content with toxic effects
and I don't recommend you try it at home.
Typically it is literally cut open and served with a spoon,
you scoop it out, you spit out the seeds
or scoop around the seeds.
But of course you may recognise,
now when you pick a paw-paw or a prickly pear
and you prick a raw paw, next time beware,
don't pick the prickly pear by the paw,
when you pick a pear, try to use the claw,
but you don't need to use the claw,
when you pick a pair of the big paw-paw,
have I given you a clue?
- Sorry?
Do you need to sit down?
- Baloo sang about this.
♪ Da da da da da, da da da da da da da da ♪
- So where's it from?
- So either the Caribbean, St. Lucia
or if it's been particularly stormy at the moment
and therefore it's not from there, then Sri Lanka.
- And usage wise, how do they use them natively?
They just literally scoop them out and eat them?
- Yeah, quite literally.
It is sometimes turned into smoothies.
It can be made into custards and jellies
and things like that,
in which case you wanna take the seeds out.
But so often, you just eat fruit as is fruit.
- I don't like the inbuilt game of roulette though.
(Barry laughing)
- Flavour-wise I think that's brilliant.
Let's stick it in a smoothie,
I could imagine you'd use that quite a lot.
Okay, we're three down, I'm still having a nice time.
That was very pleasurable.
- Yeah, really nice.
- Bit weird, but pleasurable.
- Exotic fruits, who said they're disgusting?
They could be delicious.
Should we wait for number four though?
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(light upbeat music)
- They look like relics. - Yeah, yeah.
- They've like been dug up.
- Take a bite, see what you think.
- Straight like that? Oh, my goodness.
- Are you sure? - Yes.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
If I start crying blood,
I'm gonna be angry with you, Ebbers.
- It's a terrible way to eat it, never do that,
never do that, so the skins are incredibly tannic,
so many tannins- - Ugh!
- [Ben] That it would just suck all the moisture
out of your mouth. - Ugh, awful!
- That is not how they're supposed to be eaten,
but they were having such a lovely time,
I thought I'd ruin it for them.
- It's taken all of the moisture from my body.
- My lip has gone.
- [Ben] You know the effect you get
like an over brewed tea bag or chewing on cranberries?
- Get me a drink of water.
- Ebbers! - Hugely tannic,
and yet one of my favourite tropical fruit,
because if you prepare it properly, it's delicious.
- That's awful!
- [Mike] It's given me neck ache.
- It's Bitrex!
- Let me get you some water, we'll start again.
(cheerful melodic music)
Sorry, boys, that was absolutely terrible of me.
That's not how it's supposed to be done at all,
this is actually a delicious tropical fruit,
but you were enjoying yourself too much, so. (laughing)
- [Mike] Wow, so that's what's inside?
- Lychee?
- The bit inside has a texture and a colour
similar to lychee,
let's say even more fragrant and floral and sweet.
It's a mangosteen.
- (gasps) I've heard of these.
I had no idea that this is what they look like.
It looks like cloves of garlic.
- Yeah, yeah, slimy cloves of garlic.
Do we just pop them?
- There might be one seed in the middle,
but basically yeah, you can just eat them
and then if need be, spit those out.
Absolutely delicious.
- Oh. - Oh, they are absolutely.
- Oh, it was worth the sacrifice
to get into the middle of that, blimey!
- Definitely sweet, slightly sour, but hugely tropical,
it's a cross for me between passion fruit, lychee and mango.
- I get a really intense hit of apple.
- Ooh, yeah!
- They're lovely.
- So I asked on Twitter how other people enjoy them
and basically everyone loves them,
"Cannot wait for mangosteen season, they're delicious."
Most people just saying that they eat them plain.
- Where are they grown?
- They've been cultivated across Southeast Asia
for a long, long time, so ancient time.
But then they were kind of brought to the UK
and from there, they've been taken to South America.
Again, we're looking at tropical climates,
these particular ones came from Indonesia.
- It's the fact that the inside
is so different from the outside as well.
- Yeah.
- It's like nature's Kinder Egg.
- (laughing) Yeah, there you go,
they can keep that tagline,
mangosteen, nature's Kinder Egg.
(Barry laughing)
- So it's an evergreen tree that bears fruit,
but actually the season is really short,
so they're actually only kind of marketed and sold
for between six to 10 weeks.
To be honest with you, if they taste that good
and they only grow for six weeks a year,
most people keep them and eat them and love them.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I can only apologise for sending you on that journey,
but I felt like you were enjoying yourself too much.
- You know, it made the journey more exciting, I think.
- It did.
- Yeah, it was down and bang.
- I really wasn't looking forward to eating what was in it
and it was a really pleasant surprise
and I've learnt so much today, so thanks, Ebbers.
- [Ben] Well, over to you guys, let us know,
have you tried or try regularly
any of those four exotic fruits
and then list down below any others,
that you think we should give a go.
- Journey ones, we like the journey ones, don't we?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Sometimes it's nice just to sit and learn something.
No jeopardy, no competition, just one prank.
(melodic upbeat music)
- What other part of the body
is he gonna be putting in front of us?
- Just you wait. (laughing)
- Oh no, it's gonna be furry under carriage.
(Barry laughing)
- Alright, let's get started, come on.
- Come on then, Ebbers.