While perusing the dried fruit section at Trader Joe’s, my four-year-old and I stumbled upon an new one: dragon fruit. Since the little guy spends half his days dressed up as a knight in shining armor, slaying his life-sized inflatable dragon, he thought that was pretty cool. So, for $1.99, we thought we’d take a chance. Heck, it was high in vitamin C and fiber.
We got home and proceeded to open the package of dried dragon fruit, eager to dig in and discover this new … taste sensation? Let me describe the dried dragon fruit: flat, round discs, about two inches in diameter, a vibrant magenta with purple seeds, just asking to be chomped. So I chomped, and so did the four-year-old.
The verdict?
You know, dragon fruit is pretty tasty. The sugar content was pretty high on the nutrition facts, so I expected it to be sicky- sweet, but it was not, which I was glad of. It’s crunchy and chewy, a teensy bit tart (perfect to me) and, well, healthy-tasting. The seeds pop in your teeth in the most pleasing way, and the rest just sort of melts.
I liked it, the four-year-old liked it, and all was right with the world. We’ve discovered a new snack with a novel texture and color and a high vitamin C content to boot.
But what is dragon fruit? Basically, just the fruit of a cactus, also called pitaya. Sort of a letdown, really. I wanted it to be more exotic. But the good part is that a new food is now part of our repertoire. Three cheers!
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Jan 01, 2009 @ 16:42 EST5EDT
