When Oranges are Green, Viet-Nam
Vincent: “… But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?”
Jules: “What?”
Vincent: “It’s the little differences. I mean, they got the same shit over there that they got here, but it’s just – it’s just there it’s a little different”
As many of you will quickly recognize, that was a bit of dialogue between Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) in the movie Pulp Fiction. How true those words ring for almost any traveler, and not just for Europe. Discovering those little differences is part of what draws us to travel and explore. Since we’ve gotten home from our recent travels we’ve been able to catch up with some of our friends to swap stories and share moments. One of the most frequent questions they ask is, “So what was the strangest, or weirdest thing you ate?”
Simultaneously, we would both pause and think. Weird is such a relative term. We had frog legs, congealed blood, and freshwater eel, but none of that seemed weird to us. We eat that here at home. Same goes for chicken feet, gizzard, and other oddities. Inevitably, our thought lead us to the same answer, “One of the weirdest things were the oranges.”
What?!? What’s so weird about oranges?
The oranges were green. A deep, dark, lime green rind, with a center that was still a beautiful vibrant orange. The taste was sweet, similar to a tangelo, and the segments were the same as a regular orange. It was just so intriguing to be eating a green orange. It’s just another one of those “little differences” that make travel so interesting.
These are weird to us, but normal for others. Curious about why the oranges were green, we discovered a couple places giving great explanations. Check them out Here and Here. On a scarier note, after researching a bit about the green oranges, and finding this, we are damn glad we didn’t try to sneak any back into the U.S. Now you know.
“two kilo’s, please” !
So now we ask you, “What have been one of the strangest, weirdest, or “little different” things you’ve eaten in your travels?”
Previous Viet-Nam posts you might enjoy reading and viewing:
- Heading to Viet-Nam & Twitters
- Return from Viet-Nam, fresh perspectives
- An American in the family
- Pineapple peddler in Hanoi
- When Oranges are Green
- The Face – elderly woman in Hoi An
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I think it’s weird when people freak out over pork blood.
Very interesting post. Recently I bought on the market very sweet and juicy mandarins with green skin, after couple of days in the house they started turning orange and yellow…. now I know why 🙂
By the way, great blog, I got here through Bren’s website.
Margot
I think I’ve had them before. They were called kintaro(?) at our farmers market. Tasted like a mix of orange and pomelo, very juicy and delicious
I love the colour. They look like massive limes. Can’t think of anything I would consider weird, that I’ve eaten in my travels. Although, in Northern Ireland where my boyfriend comes from, they have something deep fried called “vegetable roll”, that doesn’t contain any vegetables in it! How’s that for weird! 😛
How fascinating! Thanks for sharing; I had no idea there were green oranges or why oranges are orange. Your blog is fantastic, by the way. 🙂
By far… hardsmar served in a light soup in a steamed papaya… Actually that is the pinyin pronounciation. It’s actually frog oviduct. (Took me a while to figure that one out since Google hasn’t a clue what hardsmar was).
I think it’s so weird bc of the color and texture. It was a white, semi-opaque helical soft squishy thing that I couldn’t understand (until I found out what it was).
I absolutely love your blog and your pictures, and after backtracking through it, totally inspired by your garden before I realized that I have a black thumb and pretty much any plant that I’ve come into contact with has died… even “impossible to kill plants” such as the money tree or cacti… So, I’ll save my love of plants for food and ogling your pictures. 😀
we have such in Malaysia but from your photos those looks really juicy and refreshing,………………… lovely green oranges!
hehehehe…i love the green oranges more than the orange ones (we have those too in indonesia ^_^)
what a great pic D & T. you guys are so freakin’ cute. i wonder if i can find green oranges over here… hmmm. i’ll be in DC in a few days so i’ll look there too. NOT. sometimes i feel we can be so deprived in what we grow. that just means we have to travel. and we all love that!
Mmm I love those green oranges. They’re so amazingly sweet! My mom used to juice them up in Indonesia, and the first time I had a sip, I thought she’d added some sugar to it!
Hmmh, I’m not sure what the weirdest thing I’ve eaten was… I grew up eating boiled snails on the side streets of Jakarta and roasted pigeon brains. Had snake soup when I was nine, and thought it tasted almost exactly like chicken soup. Haha! Oh, I think the weirdest thing for me was treacle pudding! It was so weird!!! I had it about a month ago in a pub, and thought it was just overwhelmingly sweet and the texture was kinda… weird. Hmmh.