I ventured out today to get some fruit and vegetables at the Sayida Zeinab Suq. I have to admit that i walked around for a while and then chickened out and just went to the smaller market off of Falaki, near AUC. I barely feel confident ordering food in Arabic, and i definitely don’t feel up to the challenge of bargaining. I always get decent vegetables at a good price at the Falaki market, though, though not on fruit. After getting the veggies, i went to the fruit vendor on the corner of Falaki and Mohammed Mahmud and paid entirely too much for 5 mangos and a cherimoya. Actually, it wasn’t a cherimoya, but rather a similar species called in English a “Sugar Apple” or “Custard Apple”. I have to say, it does not compare favorably to a Cherimoya, at least the kind i’ve had in Southern California.
This particular one, however, was worse than most. After taking it home and eating it for about 10 minutes, Adrienne discovered a bunch of maggots in it. She screamed and went to the bathroom to throw up. Although calling them at first maggots, she convinced herself that they were tapeworms or some other parasite. We extracted a few more from the half-eaten fruit, attempted to put them in a plastic bag while they jumped around, and then Adrienne did enough research to convince herself that they were in fact maggots. She even went above and beyond to research their culinary and medical benefits. She discovered, for instance, that there is a Sardinian chesse deliberately riddled with maggots. She also discovered that maggots can be used to treat antibiotic-resistant Staph infections.
You learn something new every day!
