Monday, November 7, 2011

Eating "stears" in the Philippines

I went to the Philippines, by boat. (Several other people did too.) I was looking at a map, trying to figure out where I would actually make landfall. I picked the central west coast of an island (which was shaped kind of like a mirror image of Japan's Honshu island), after passing by the northwestern tip of the island where many of the other travelers were going. I arrived, swimming the last short leg of the journey to the dock. I was then in the house of a host family, sitting at their medium-sized round wooden kitchen table.

There were at least two people there. There was a "motherly" type, and a "brotherly" type. I was eating some food -- particularly, fruits that looked kind of like eggplants, or elongated mangoes without a pit. I used a large knife whose sharp edge curved towards the front end, and rather than ending in a point, the front end was broad, sharp, and slightly angled. To cut the fruit open, I stabbed the broad end of the knife straight into the middle of the fruit (lengthwise) and sliced it in half.

The brother asked me if I wanted any pizza, and I said "yes". I wasn't exactly sure when the pizza would be served (either in a few minutes, or tomorrow morning). In any case, another woman had appeared, and she was another traveler like me, possibly my leader/commander. She said I should really be eating the "stears" (pronounced "stares"/"stairs") for nutrition. The "stears" were like the other fruits, but bigger/longer with orange skin. Actually, the other fruits may have been another variety of "stears".

I think the reason I know how to spell "stears" is that I saw a flash of a news show on the small TV in the corner of the kitchen where they were talking about them, with a picture and caption.

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