Chôm Chôm - Rambutan

Clusters of rambutan fruit

With a bright red skin like a slab of rubber, and a thick coat of soft curved hair like the hooks in velcro, the rambutan fruit looks like the egg of an alien. Peeling back the skin reveals a white translucent orb like albumen. At the core of this gummy, slightly grape-flavored flesh is an edible seed that tastes slightly nutty. The whole experience of eating a rambutan is as delicious as its appearance is unusual. We got to experience a rambutan harvest at an orchard in Vĩnh Long, and we brought home 25 pounds of the wonderful but bizarre looking fruit.

In the morning after we arrived in Vĩnh Long, Dì Tư took us for a walk to the rambutan orchard near her house. But first, we had to cross the river to get to a river island where the orchard is. We made our way to the dock for a ferry that shuttles people back and forth. The ferry pulled in, the metal ferry gangplank slid up the concrete dock, and we boarded. The ferry backed out from the dock, turned around, and chugged through the malty-brown water for the island. The current was strong, and the ferry aimed far upstream to compensate. We got to the other side and disembarked. After meeting a friend of Dì Tư, we took to the sidewalk for the orchard.

On the way we passed a cornucopia of fruits hanging from trees: enormous jackfruit, globular pomelo, green-skinned oranges, clusters of longyans, various types of bananas, and coconuts at the tops of palm trees. Tunnels dug beneath the sidewalk channel water from the river into canals between the fruit trees. The verdant quality of the forest is matched by its productivity. It's hard to imagine anyone going for want of food in the delta.

The bamboo tool

At the orchard, we found spiky fruits of reds, yellows, and greens dangling in clusters far out of reach. The guard handed us a pair of bamboo poles with forked tips at one end. The way to gather rambutan is to find bright red fruit and spear the branch around five or ten inches above them. Twisting the pole breaks the branch, and the fork holds the harvest in place. You drop the pole down and gather the bounty. Within twenty minutes we gathered more than 25 pounds of the delicious fruit, which we carried back to the guardhouse for weighing. The guard priced our bounty at $2.50, Dì Tư's friend tied the branches together into bundles, and we carried them back to the ferry.

Since we've been home, we've been slowly making a dent in our harvest. We've been eating it every day, and have given away grocery bags brimming with rambutan to more than four people, and we still have enough to fill up a kitchen sink. Also we found out, during one of Lữ's trips around Vietnam, that the seed of the rambutan is edible. Not only is it edible, it's really tasty, with the consistency of a giant fresh unroasted peanut, and the flavor of coconut. And tonight, Lữ made chè with rambutan, jackfruit, dragonfruit, avocado, yogurt and condensed milk over ice. It was divine. I'm not sure we'll get tired of the rambutan before we run out, but I'm happy to find out.