So, This Is Fruit From A Lychee Tree...

On Friday, we do our shopping. We limit shopping to once a week--we tried doing this before the pandemic, but we always seemed to hit our local grocery store several times a week. Ever since March, we've done pretty good about only going out once a week.

And in our local grocery store, they have a wide variety of fresh produce from which to choose. There's bananas, and oranges, apples and peppers. Then, there's a section of exotic fruits, strange and unusual specimens from all over the world. As I passed by, I spotted something that looked like a strawberry, but it wasn't. I snapped a couple of pictures--I thought one might be used for my Pic Of The Day.

Turns out, it was the picture I used.

The problem was, I had no idea of what the things were. I tried being funny, so on my Facebook post, I posted the following caption:

"Maybe They're Just...Cold Strawberries."

Knowing what these things is important when a friend posts the following question on your Facebook picture:

"I've never seen strawberries do that. Are these really strawberries?"

Today, I went on a quest for knowledge. The goal--to find out what kinds of fruit these are. I first went to the grocery store's website and did a search of their available produce. These things were not listed. So, I did more checking. I did an Image search for unusual fruit. A few pages down, I came across what I was looking for. I photographed a lychee fruit.

If you don't know what a lychee fruit is (and I know I didn't...), it comes from Southeast Asia. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica website:

Lychee, (Litchi chinensis), also spelled litchi or lichi, evergreen tree of the soapberry family (Sapindaceae), grown for its edible fruit. Lychee is native to Southeast Asia and has been a favourite fruit of the Cantonese since ancient times. The fruit is usually eaten fresh but can also be canned or dried. The flavour of the fresh pulp is aromatic and musky, and the dried pulp is acidic and very sweet.

So, there you have it. And now I can answer my friend's question. I thin we've all learned a little, don't you?