Many fruits evoke remembrances of my childhood, and they’re usually the ones I miss seeing in today’s supermarkets and wet market stalls. One in particular brings me back to those two years of grade school in Olongapo, Zambales which was perhaps the happiest time of my early years.
The camachile (Pithecellobium dulce, Manila tamarind, Madras thorn fruit) gives a reddish tint on the outside of the skin when it’s ripe enough to eat. With my meager grade school allowance, I would buy some pieces at the sari-sari stall. It wasn’t only because I wanted to taste the white flesh but my main activity was to remove the black covering of the seeds making sure that the brown skin inside remained intact. It was a challenge that my siblings and I never accomplished. But we never stopped trying.
Then during that same period in the summer, my mother always bought, those handcrafted woven containers (another traditional craft one hardly sees anymore) containing (, Java plum) (, Spanish plum), and (). Thankfully mangoes can still be bought in fruit stalls, and the best for me are from the Zambales region where Olongapo is, while the dark plum-like and the with its yellow brownish skin and juicy yellow interior are absent. We could eat as much as we wanted. However, that sometimes meant overeating. Once, my sister indulged herself too much that she had to be brought to the hospital.
