Exotic fruit fest raises question: What is that?

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

Correction (7/12/01): The longan is a fruit sometimes referred to as the dragon's eye.

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 8, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- Bill Plantamura picks at fruit he could not identify. His paper plate is full. So is his courage.

That one looks like scrambled eggs. And the one the Chinese call the Dragon Eye looks tasty, even if it is a visually intimidating fruit with, yes, an oddly eyeball-shaped seed at its core.

"It looks like an eyeball," Plantamura, 62, of St. Petersburg, confirms as he splits the piece of fruit with a fearless bite. "It tastes like, well, I don't know what it tastes like. It's pretty good, even if I don't know what it is."

For the record: it's Litchi chinensis, the Chinese lychee fruit.

So went the first day of the East Meets West Japanese & Exotic Fruit Festival at Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg on Saturday, a two-day Japanese culture and exotic fruit fest that continues today with everything from exotic fruit tasting to bonsai exhibitions, sales of numerous fruit tree varieties, Japanese calligraphy and other exhibits.

The festival is organized by city officials to help mark the 40th anniversary of St. Petersburg's partnership with its Japanese sister city, Takamatsu.

Here one question dominated: What in the heck is that?

Howard Plumley, a Gainesville computer network employee, wanders over to the fruit tasting and decides to have a taste of a durian fruit, a fruit as large and heavy as a bowling ball and altogether rare in area supermarkets.

"They've got a wonderful flavor but nobody imports them because they smell so bad," he says of the Asian fruit. "It's like rotten eggs or garbage three days old."

He describes the flavor as a good banana split, without the calories.

"You can't worry about the smell," he says.

Out by the front of Sunken Gardens, Sarasota plant nursery owner Charlie Crowley sells a large variety of fruit plants, for those who would rather own than taste.

He's giving a bamboo lecture later in the afternoon and can pound out the names of his favorite figs the way a proud father recites the names of his children.

"There's the green isha fig," he said. "The birds don't know it's ripe, so they don't go after it."

He points to an Ambersweet orange tree. "The government spent $17-million developing that," he says.

He points to a variegated pink lemon tree. "The fruit is pink inside," he says. "That's where pink lemonade comes from."

This man knows his fruit.

Back inside, Plantamura's wife, Nobuka, a native of Hiroshima, Japan, takes a piece of the fruit resembling scrambled eggs and holds it out to her husband.

"Want to try it?" she asks.

"I don't know what it is," her husband answers.

"Good."

His best post-bite guess: a mango variety.

If you go

East Meets West Japanese & Exotic Fruit Festival, Sunken Gardens, 1825 Fourth St. N, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for seniors and $2 for children.

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