It was the call of a person that had to have been that hungry.
I have never had it! Now I am very cautiously curious.
I had it once, and that was enough.
Seriously. Gabe, just grab a piece of classroom chalk, cram it in your mouth, and start chewing. That's as accurate a picture of the taste of this melon as I can give you.
Wow. I used to eat chalk when I was a kid. I don't remember it being that bad. But that doesn't mean I don't believe you!
Having been traumatized by that vegetable as a child I can eat it as an adult, but not with any great enthusiasm. My grandmother believed it balanced the body somehow; that the bitter melon was on the opposite end of the spectrum of vegetables people tended to eat more often, so the melon balanced out the "humors". There's no english equivalent word for it...
I'll grant you that it doesn't really sit right with the American palate, but it's probably just a cultural thing. Lots of societies eat insects, you know? Jeffrey Steingarten realized at some point that lots of cultures eat lots of different things that we'd find disgusting, so he decided he'd just go and eat anything and everything, so long as some culture somewhere eats it regularly. His book "The Man Who Ate Everything" is the result.
Also khimchi. I love the stuff, but if that's not on the same end of the Crazy Food spectrum as bitter melon, then I am a monkey's uncle.
Maybe I am ... maybe I am.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the intercultural "WHAT, YOU EAT THAT" boils down to "DANG THAT LOOKS NASTY." Bitter melon looks totally innocuous! It just tastes, and I cannot overemphasize this enough, like death. Like a material that would end your life if you were foolish enough to ingest more of it.
Living with a Chinese family for the better part of two years gave me a chance to have bitter melon on several occasions.
It never gets any more tolerable, and its even worse, because the colour and shape make it look entirely harmless to the outside observer. Seriously, I thought it was just some sort of large celery thing (It is green and sort of curvy and oversized celery-thing looking) until I put it in my mouth and tasted quite possibly the worst thing ever.
I have to agree with Jon on this one, Gabe. Stay well away.
Commenting by HaloScan
