The evil side of lychees
 

I tasted fresh lychees for the first time last night. OMG, I am in LOVE, except for the price.

Fruit is my weakness to begin with. I love fruit, and can easily overeat it - drastically overeat it (I once ate more than a pound of ranier cherries in an afternoon, and it probably was closer to a pound and a half).

At least, there's very little chance of me binging on lychees. Hubby bought a small bunch for me as a treat, and I only learned after begining to eat them, that he paid more than $15 for 16 fruit (the edible portion about the size of a large grape). Almost $1 for a bite-sized fruit! I ate four last night, and four this morning.

They are super-sweet, so they're probably high glycemic. I know that if I had not learned the cost, I would have eaten them all last night. Even now, knowing the price, it's going to be very difficult to avoid buying them more often than I can afford.

oh yeah they are AWESOME

Amateur! ;)

I can't wait for cherry season to get here. Although I will control myself and weigh my portions. However, I know I'll be trying to work in as many as I can.

I used to love lychees. They were never cheap, but wow, that's an amazing difference. I don't think I could have brought myself to buy them at that price. However, enjoy them!

Lychee Nutritional Info
 

They sound wonderful. I would love to try them.

Here is the nutritional info for them:

Lychee (edible parts)
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 70 kcal 280 kJ
Carbohydrates 16.5 g
- Dietary fiber 1.3 g
Fat 0.4 g
Protein 0.8 g
Vitamin C 72 mg 120%
Calcium 5 mg 1%
Magnesium 10 mg 3%
Phosphorus 31 mg 4%

Edible parts are 60% of total weight
Percentages are relative to US
recommendations for adults.
Source: USDA Nutrient database

Looks like they are very high in vitamin C.

Deb

My son and I love lychee especially when they are ice cold. I put them in a bowl of ice water on the outside table and we pop them open with the juice spilling down our chins. I have only bought them at Asian markets (primarily Chinese) and when in season they have always been reasonable. They are usually sold in a net bag that must have 30 or more for under $4.

i love them too!

i get them either in chinatown in toronto or at the asian grocery.much much cheaper than that!

i'm glad you discovered such wonderfulness!

isolde

When I worked in India we used to buy lychees by the bagful for a like twenty rupees a time. Also four bananas for ten rupees. (1 GBP = approx 78 Rupees!!) Good memories :)

I guess it's the price of living in a relatively small city in land-locked Wisconsin. The price is probably better in Madison or Milwaukee, where foodies are probably a little more common. It's almost unheard of to even find asian eggplant in the non-asian grocery stores. The farmers' markets are fantastic, and the prices are generally amazing. Although it's a bit sad that there's still a large racial barrier. My husband and I shop mostly the Hmong vendors, because their prices are the best and even with the language barrier, will pantamime how a vegetable or fruit is eaten or prepared, and will give out samples, or throw in extras with your purchases. We've tried to encourage friends, and family members to shop at the Hmong stalls, but the language barrier throws them off - and they pay for it. The caucasian vendors sometimes sell the exact same produce at twice the price.

We shop the asian vendors and asian groceries, because the prices and products are amazing. If you want pomegranate, mangostean, passion fruit, noni and other exotic juices, you can buy them in asian groceries (usually in 12 oz cans) for sometimes 1/20 of what you'd pay in a typical grocery store.

Which is why I do wonder if the cashier may not have made a mistake keying in the price on the the lychees. Maybe we'll have to go back and check.

Good news for me, I found out today that the lychees were $15 a pound, only because it was the first pick of the season (which is always the most expensive). They sold out quickly, and this friday's shipment will be $6 a pound, and probably even cheaper the week after. It's about a 6 week season.

The grocer asked if we'd had longan fruit, which is similar to lychee. He had canned, but the season has just ended, so we'll have to wait until next year to try fresh. He's such a nice man, and is just tickled to have curious white folk anxious to try unfamiliar asian foods. We even got on the subject of durian (the infamous stinky fruit that is banned in hotels and public places in asia because of the yucky smell - Andrew Zimmern compared it to rotted onions, and Anthony Bourdaine compared it to eating custard in an outhouse - and he loves it).

The grocery store owner told us that almost no one likes durian the first time they try it, but the more you try it, the more you like it. I'm pretty brave, but I'm definitely not that brave. I think I'd eat balut first (the eggs with duckling embryos in them), and that's pretty low on my "to try" list.