Today, a lesson in fruit.

Here, we have the longan fruit.

While in Morocco, our little travel group fell ill to some stomach ailments. For days, I would sit grumpily, wondering when the churning in my innards would stop (sorry, TMI, I know). And then one day, as we were walking along the streets of (I think) Marrakech, I made a remark about how the particular street we were walking on reminded me of parts of Taiwan because of the way it smelled and how that was working to calm my stomach. It’s weird how smell can affect a person like that, isn’t it? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that longan reminds me of Taiwan too, because this stuff is EVERYWHERE over there and it is so fresh and so delicious that thinking about it makes me do what Felix does when I keep his wet food just out of reach (read: drool a lot).

Crack them open…

Yum.

Don’t forget to spit out the seeds. This, by the way, is where longan, which literally translates to “dragon eyes”, gets its name.

Now, I know some of you are reading this and shaking your heads and saying, “Dude, aren’t those lychee?”

Exhibit B: The Lychee.

They’re much bigger and different in color (red, as opposed to the longan’s brown), but they are equally as delicious.

I apologize for the poor illustrative qualities of the previous photo. Blame it on poor lighting and my loss of photo mojo as of late (tragic, I know).

Behold the yum!

Behold the aftermath!

And, if you have some extra watermelon rinds lying around, behold the weird!

And there you have it. Longan (yum) and lychee (yum yum) and a glimpse into how I became such a strange girl.