Lychee

Lychee Fruit grow in Madagascar!!

Lychee tree in northern Madagascar

I was really surprised to find them here and I had never tasted a fresh lychee fruit before (only lychee juice and candied lychee) so I had a new experience this last week!

 

Freshly picked!

Lychee ripen in the north and south of Madagascar around the 15^th of November and they continue to be produced and shipped around the country into mid-late December.  The fruit is ripe when it appears bright red on the outside.

ripe lychee

The skin has almost an alligator-leather-y-ness to it, but it peels off the juicy white fruit very easily!

leathery-skinned delicious fruit

Inside the white fruit has a unique texture and LOTS of juice.

peels after eating the little fruits

In the center of the tasty fruit flesh is a brown-coloured pit that varies in size.

various sizes of lychee pits

The best fruit are really red on the outside with a small pit (one the size of a small peanut); however, often the pit is the size of a large almond.  The pit does not affect the taste, but it does affect how much fruit one enjoys!

 

bunch of lychee; this many costs about 200 Ariary

While the season for lychee is rather  short, the only way that I have heard of that Malagasy preserve the lychee is to dry them:  first the whole branch of fruit is immersed in boiling water for only a couple of minutes, then the branch of fruits is left in the sun to dry for about two weeks.  When preserved in this way, the fruit will last for several months with the white flesh drying around the pit.