A salad supremed

There’s a pomelo tree outside my bedroom window. It’s fruiting right now (at the ripening stage, actually) but no one is paying it any mind, much less the owner (it belongs to a neighbor). Once upon a time I had leaned off our roof and wrested a golden orb from its branch, excited and guilty in turns. Had I fallen and killed myself, I could imagine the neighbors’ chatter. “You mean the idiot had no idea that tree bore dry, bitter fruit? Where had he been all this time?”

That’s why I never buy pomelo locally, not even if the vendor swears on his mother-in-law’s grave that it’s from Davao. S&R makes that claim, too, and the ones I got there had always been less than satisfactory. If I’m going to have pomelo, I wait — for A.’s brother to send some from Davao where he now lives, or for someone who has just been there to somehow remember me/us with a gift of the fruit (forget durian). There’s only good pomelo and bad pomelo. There’s no gray area (or shades thereof) in-between. What’s the point otherwise? If the pomelo you bought isn’t as sweet as the vendor had promised it would be, you’ve been had — period.

It may interest you to know that bu-ongon (as we call it here) is an original citrus fruit, along with citron, mandarin, and papeda, meaning that the rest of the citrus fruits are hybrids thereof (kalamansi, for example, is believed to be a hybrid between the mandarin and the kumquat, while both orange and grapefruit are hybrids of mandarin and pomelo). No wonder pomelo is the biggest fruit among the citrus species. Anyway, you are not here for a lecture, so let me just mention that the Cagayan Valley region is nowadays supposedly catching up with Davao in pomelo production, although I have yet to taste their pomelo so I can’t confirm if it’s as sweet.

I must admit that I rarely bother to make salad of pomelo. If you ask me, it is best eaten as-is. But seeing as I have a reputation (of sorts) to uphold, I just can’t let it go at that, can I? So here’s my take on pomelo salad.

To make, take peeled pomelo and mix with some torn lettuce (I used curly leaf), sliced onions (steeped in iced water for at least 15 minutes), minced finger chili, chopped roasted cashews (or peanuts), and mint leaves (none in the picture, if you’ll notice; I only remembered as I was about to eat the salad). In a separate bowl, combine 3 tablespoons lime (or kalamansi) juice and a teaspoon of fish sauce (sometimes I add ¼ teaspoon ujáp/fermented shrimp paste for a hit of umami). Pour vinaigrette over salad a tablespoon at a time and toss until just coated (I like mine on the dry side; add more if desired).

That’s it. That simple, if not as simple as popping the pomelo straight into your mouth. My father considers the extra ingredients nothing more than frippery. “Foolishness,” he’d said over my shoulder as I prepared the salad. He’s so skeptical, even of the fruits when he’d first laid eyes on them (they were from a cousin). Not that I could fault him: unpeeled, they looked just like the ones hanging outside my window!

With pomelo, there’s really no telling what you’ll get. Some suggest it’s like mango: the more imperfect it looks on the outside (mottled, for instance), the juicier and sweeter its pulp. But I have still to encounter enough bad-looking good pomelo to agree (the ones we had were quite small but had no glaring superficial defects) — although it’s tempting to, inner goodness being the sole consolation of the aesthetically challenged (ahem). My gaze drifts to the tree outside. Sure enough, there on a low branch hangs a lone sorry-looking specimen among the beauties. Dare I risk life and limb anew to find credence to the assertion? Or would that simply make me an idiot twice over?

(In case you’re wondering about the title of this post, that’s definitely not a typo. Supreme is the proper culinary term for divesting citrus fruit of skin, pith, membranes, and seeds, and separating it into segments.)