Okay, so yes: the chicken or the egg question on this post was I ran across the pictures and then decided a post on star fruit specifically, and unusual tropical fruit in general really wasn’t a bad idea. If you come from a climate where these don’t grow, trying them out for the first time can be a real joy. Or a major pain in the ass. Without someone in the know to help you out, how you go about eating a piece of odd looking fruit you’ve never seen before can be problematic. Or as in the case of durian, unless someone is pushing you, why would you ever dare?

Fortunately I have Noom. And he delights in having me try new foods. Actually he delights in having an opportunity as a Thai to demonstrate there is something a Thai knows that the farang does not. But that’s cool. I let him stroke his ego, and I get to try a new piece of fruit without eating the wrong part. Or missing out on the good part.

Way too many years ago I moved to the Monterey Peninsula, which is a major growing area for artichokes. I knew what they were, but had never eaten one. A friend introduced me to eating them cold, dipping the leaves in some sour cream based concotion and then skimming the meat off with your teeth. Yummy. And a perfect accompaniment to numerous glasses of scotch – adventures in dining thanks to happy hour at the local bar. A few years after that I was dining at some friends’ home who served up an artichoke, and after picking off all the larger leaves (and polishing off several shots of scotch yet again) I got up to toss the remainder out. Like usual. Huh. No one ever told me about the heart. My friends were aghast that I was about to chuck out the best part. And so we learn. But I digress . . .

Having lived in Hawaii, I was introduced to a lot of tropical fruit that I’d never seen before. I fell in love with papaya, learned it’s best to eat mango leaning over the kitchen sink, and even discovered short, sweet Filipino bananas that put the taste of the bananas I’d eaten as a child to shame. And for those of you with a one-track mind, yeah, I learned how tasty Filipinos’ bananas were too. As well as that like with the fruit they are often much shorter than those I’d previously been used too. I tasted a lychee (in a sauce over ice cream) before I ever saw one, so I didn’t have to figure out whether you were supposed to bite into those little suckers whole or not (uh, not for those who haven’t tried one. Unless you love visiting your dentist). And while some may disagree, I learned that passion fruit is best used in a recipe rather than eaten fresh off the tree.

When I started visiting Thailand, that knowledge base helped greatly. There was no way I was just going to bite into the first rambutan I saw, but the inside looked enough like a lychee that I figured out what to eat and avoided a trip to the dentist. Dragon fruit too did not scream, “Bite me!” but by the time I decided I needed to try eating one of those odd looking pink things I had Noom to advise me, and much like a parent instructing a child he very seriously pointed out that I was not to eat the outer skin. Noom also introduced me to both longon and langsat, and had to convince me that sala was fruit and not an uncooked vegetable. And though I’d heard of mango sticky rice before, Noom ordered my first dish, putting it down in front of me with a big smile and then promptly set to eating almost all of it. And I learned there was in fact a better way to eat mango than while standing over the kitchen sink. As long as I keep the plate away from Noom.

Mangosteen were self-explanatory, though Noom explained anyway. Santol required a demonstration, and looking like it was a bad attempt at being some other fruit didn’t exactly make my taste buds water – my initial assumption, without Noom’s assistance, would have been confirmed. Hunting down exotic fruit so that he can yet again demonstrate how superior he is as a Thai in knowing all things Thai is still one of Noom’s greatest pleasures when we are out strolling Bangkok’s streets. So he was less than thrilled the first time I picked up a star fruit and expertly trimmed off the brown edges before slicing it and flicking away the apple-like seeds with the tip of my finger I love getting a, “How you know dat?” out of Noom.

So needing text to go with the photos I wanted to use for this post, I thought a quick instruction on how to eat star fruit would be a good idea. But then a quick check with Google to make sure I wasn’t about to say something stupid (not that that ever keeps me from doing so) I found out that there’s a reason it’s ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ instead of an adage recommending star fruit. It turns out the stuff can kill you.

With an average of only 30 calories per fruit plus lots of fiber, star fruit is a great choice for anyone trying to lose weight. They’re a great source of Vitamin C, and are full of antioxidants. But, if you have kidney problems, eating star fruit can be very dangerous, even deadly. Symptoms of “star fruit intoxication” include persistent hiccups, nausea, vomiting, agitation, insomnia, mental confusion, and convulsions that occur within one to five hours of eating the fruit. And you thought those spiky rambutans looked dangerous.

Of course the internet is not exactly the best place to get accurate information and the idea that star fruit could kill you sounds just like the kind of false story that would easily take digital wings, but I searched a bit more and even found that researchers in Brazil are trying to discover exactly what it is in star fruit that is responsible for this negative reaction in some. They still don’t know. But do know that star fruit intoxication can develop in patients with kidney failure after eating as little as one half of a fruit or drinking less than eight ounces of star fruit juice. The only way to deal with star fruit intoxication is prompt dialysis – so anyone who does have kidney problems and develops hiccups, vomiting or other symptoms after eating star fruit should get immediate medical attention. If you have no kidney problems, you can eat all the star fruit you want – it has no effect on healthy kidneys.

Now if I can just figure out a way to convince Noom that mango sticky rice is bad for him, I’ll be a happy camper.

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