To Kimchi or NOT to Kimchi??

Since arriving here in the Philippines, one thing that I have been told over and over…”you need to try this…..it is sooooooo good for you”. Yep, I am going to write about food again ( I think it may be an inexhaustible subject). I am told about the wonderful anti oxidants, the vitamins, fiber, minerals…how it will keep me young and stave off disease. Many times I have been pleasantly surprised. A few times, just the smell of something (like the durian) makes it very hard to eat. I thought that this would be the case with the kimchi. I was actually surprised.

 

Drew and I did our taste test together. Our faces show the bit of uncertainty of what we put in the mouth. But it was not too bad. I do not want to eat it every day, but I think I gets a bad wrap due to it’s stinky fermented smell.

 

Some of the foods here are just a weird combination. I have a hard time thinking about eating sweet corn on or in my ice cream. The brightly colored purple ice cream is Ube, a purple yam…. Magnolia is a brand of Philippine ice cream.

 

I have also seen cheese flavored ice cream. Hmmmmm? Maybe it is just my western palate?? The ingredients on this Halo Halo ice cream include garbanzo beans, corn, white kidney beans, mungo beans,  sweet potato, cheese, rice krispies, jelly cubes, a variety of candied fruits, coconut.  It is modeled after a favorite dessert here, the Halo Halo. That actually means mix mix…..you decide. Mix Mix is right!  Just look at what goes into one of these!

It is very interesting to go to the grocery store. Leron was with me  today and I caught him tucking this jar in among the groceries. It is  Nata de COCO. Hmmmm, very interesting in the mouth to say the least. Pretty good flavor though.

Today, I started asking the fruit guy about some of the things that were unfamiliar to me. I came home with lanzones .

 

and macopa.

Well, those are my eating adventures as of late. I included links to most of these, so feel free to click away if you would like. I learned A LOT myself just searching the web. Even though my friend Josh says Wikipedia is unreliable…I think for this purpose, it was helpful. So to Kimchi or NOT…well, we did and I may look about 16 when I come back to the states this summer.