Text 22506, 73 rader
Skriven 2007-11-09 13:45:29 av Glen Jamieson
     Kommentar till en text av Barbara Mcnay
Ärende: AHHH 296  71109
=======================
 -=> Quoting Barbara Mcnay to Glen Jamieson <=-

 > Although I have been there several times to visit my
 > niece, I still
 > prefer most other US cities to Houston.  As an
 > engineer, I found
 > Galveston one of the most fascinating, while San
 > Antonio has
 > enthralling historical associations and buildings.

 BM> I have been to Galveston beach several times; a somewhat distant
 BM> cousin of my ex has an art school/museum in San Antonio.

The Galveston beach didn't impress me much, but along the wharf area
I saw many places of interest, such as the retired drilling platform
turned into a museum, and a replica sailing ship being prepared for
long journeys by volunteers.  As I have a weakness for museums,
particularly those with an engineering accent, I also spent time at the
car and railway museums.  There are also some beautiful old stately
homes in that city, some of them open to the public.

San Antonio also has its museums, at the Alamo, the Spanish governor's
house and the art museum.  Its Riverside Walk is quite delightful.
 
 >   In PNG even more kinds are grown, including my
 > favourite - a
 > short, dumpy banana with a thin, reddish skin and
 > yellow flesh which
 > has a sweet apple flavour.

 BM> That sounds interesting.  I didn't know there were so many varieties
 BM> of bananas; obviously, we can't get them here.

I have been told that PNG has some 200 varieties, including the tiny
wild bananas that the others descended from, but not all are edible.
In fact, some may be poisonous.  One of my other favourites is pale
green when ripe, with a flowery, perfumed taste.  It has a very short
shelf life, with only a day between "green" and "over-ripe going bad".
 
 > The banana flower can be cut from the plant once the
 > fruit begins to
 > form, without affecting the rest of the plant.  It is
 > often offered for
 > sale in Asian groceries.  I like it cooked this way:

 BM> I have a picture of banana flowers not on the plant.  I'll have to
 BM> hunt up a picture of the flowering plant to see how it grows.

That is something difficult to describe, as there is nothing else like
a banana fruit/flower combination.  The plant produces only one bunch,
then dies.  The leaves are used a lot for wrapping meat or fish, to be
steamed or cooked in a ground oven.  The stem is usually wasted, but
its fibres can be made into the traditional translucent Filipino shirts
- the "barong Tagalog".  Recently a firm in Adelaide has begun
producing high quality paper from it.

 BM> Incidentally, the brief recent messages about mangosteens suggests
 BM> that only the inside is eaten, but the juice sold here, according to
 BM> the label, is from the entire fruit. The purple part is said to be very
 BM> rich in something-or-other-that's-good-for-you.  What has been your
 BM> experience with the way various peoples deal with this fruit?

The outer husk is a bit like that of a passion fruit, but with thicker
pith.  Rather bitter in flavour; not something that is normally eaten.
Normally the mangosteen is just cut open and the several sections of
juicy flesh picked out and eaten, discarding the seeds.  Flavour is
somewhat similar to rambutan or lychee - sweet and succulent.  In parts
of SE Asia it is eaten as a companion to durian - a "cooling" fruit to
match the "heating" effect of the durian.
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR]

--- FLAME v2.0/b
 * Origin: Braintap BBS Adelaide Australia (3:800/449)