About twice what I pay.
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I would imagine how long it’s been on the plant does impact much of the quality and taste. When I was in Hong Kong and bought fresh dragon fruit from the fruit vendors, even the regular white fleshed ones, the hit rate was far better to get a sweet fruit (but we got a few dud, bland ones too). In the US, where I assume they are picked much earlier for transport reasons, the white-fleshed ones are 75% of the time bland, IMO.
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Very much. Yes. Here almost every fruit seller uses carbide to ripen fruits, especially papayas, bananas, and mangoes. A few sprays of carbide and the fruit goes yellow. No taste at all.
The old method used by villagers was to dig a pit, put some kind of leaves, bury the bananas, and then smoke it once and shut the smoke hole. Open it after a few days and it’s ripe. The leaves they used were some type of wild cinnamon. Tastes exactly like cinnamon but not the real one.
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Monks here (the vast majority) do not focus on discussion and advancement. What I know is that when someone from the west gets monasticism they are purely there for understanding and following the religion. But when it comes from tradition, in countries like this, it’s more about other purposes.
Just take alms giving. When I was a little child alms giving was, a family gets together, cook a good meal, take it to the temple and offer it to the monks. That’s all. Monks partake, bless, and it’s done.
But today, they give you a list of items they need. And you must offer them a bag of fruits, and other gifts, including an envelope with money…to each of them. And the family members can’t carry the alms like the olden days. For the number of things to offer, you would need a few more people. In other words, for a poor family it’s really hard to offer alms because it needs the income of a few months to complete it.
The Buddhism your sister is following and experiencing, that’s the real version as it sounds. The one that was here decades ago.
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I absolutely adore frisee- and escarole. And okra, too. When I go to the u-pick farms I eat a lot of raw okra. Wonderful taste.
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I don’t like food that has the texture of hair. I think I once commented that salads composed of 100% escarole should be illegal. I’m fine with slime, though, and I love okra.
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That’s fine- more escarole and frisee for me 
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I love steamed okra. Especially the miniature variety.
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You are welcome to my share. Why waste it on someone who won’t appreciate it?
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You took me back to my childhood. I was born in a rural village in Galle, a district in southern Sri Lanka. My grandfather used to grow okra on the foot paths(ridges) in his paddy field. Some days I walk on them with my dad, and he picks very tender okra and eats them with me. I loved them. My dad is no more but that’s one memory I will exchange my life to go back and live one second.
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Oh, that’s very sweet. What a great memory to have with your Dad!
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Circling back because @LindaWhit linked an article with this on WFD:
“There are three types of sweet corn sold today, each differentiated by sweetness: normal-sugar, sugar-enhanced, and super-sweet (this one with nearly three times the amount of sugar as the normal variety). So, if you’ve noticed that your corn on the cob tastes blissfully sweet, that’s probably because it is, no matter what color kernels you’re eating.”
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Between this remark and the presence of the famous ECL, much more SF content in this thread than anticipated. 
That’s mostly the case In These Islands too. But one Irish supermarket, Dunnes, actually has this as a shelving category. And even – where packaged – as a label, right there on the product. “Exotic Fruit.” It’s a bit odd, as very much a non-category category. Like World Music. Faintly Othering, indeed. Food From Foreign!
I suppose they do it because they have a somewhat more extensive range of these than other domestic supermarkets. (The main multiples are Tesco, the UK supermarket, the two German discounters, which make a point of being rather more limited-range than the others, and SuperValu, which as well as being badly short of vowel, I struggle to think of a ‘real’ supermarket at all, being a franchise-model chain whose stores read like they’re overgrown corner shops from another decade or conveniences stores.) So they’re making a point of marketing it. And also to brace you for the sticker shock when you then realize how few kumquats or dragonfruit you’re about to get for your fiver.
“exotic” cannot be a standard category ever, because it changes from place to place. That’s what made me ask this question too, to know what’s exotic for different people. If exotic were a standard category, when you come to Sri Lanka you’ll find that the exotic fruits are actually local fruit for you. 
Another idea of exotic I found in books is “luxury.” E.g. if a house has exotic ornaments it shows wealth and luxury. In a way it’s same about vegetables and fruits too. At least in my country.
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Sure, it’s nonsense as a “standard category” – as I think I said in terms! I just thought it was a (potentially! – or not, YMMV) interesting datapoint that is was nonsense made manifest in shelving and packaging in that instance. So while it varies from place to place (every Dunnes Store in Ireland, vs… everywhere else), it necessarily can’t vary from person to person, at least if they were so rash as to take Dunnes’ word on the matter.
Apparently on their website they go with the slightly more objectively reasonable “tropical and exotic”, the packaging of the latter remains as described. In fact in this case, that it’s “exotic” is apparently all they’ll tell you, rather than the name of the fruit in question! 
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haha yes I had a look. it’s just “exotic fruit” lol. I wonder what they are. kind of pears?
they say it’s flavoursome.
They have pineapple and watermelon which i think are exotic for them. Not sure of others.
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I’m glad you enjoyed, didn’t want to link as it’s not like I’m on commission, or anything. 
No, I think pineapple and watermelon are merely “tropical”, and haven’t been for quite a while. Even mangos, kiwis, and pomegranates aren’t nominatively ‘exotic’ any more! I’m going to have to go check what they’re actually selling right now with an ‘exotic’ label, now you’ve reminded me! (Also, I need a generic loaf of own-brand wholewheat bread – if they even have any left. How exotic is that!
The “mystery exotic fruit” is indeed hilarious! I’m curious if that’s not a site-manifesting error, or if it’s really some sort of “exotic fruit du jour” item. Stay tuned while I investigate!
First, I assume everyone is quite literally on the edge of their seat awaiting the result of my breadquest. Success! Whole seconds before chucking-out time.
So I didn’t linger too long over the “exotics”, but I do have a few scattered datapoints. First, the section still exists! And it’s several shelves, populated by various things I just said weren’t “exotic” at all. Oh well! Even coconuts, a fruit so lamestream it appears inside a Mars confection and on the outside of home-made Scottish sweets in the '70s, can apparently be “exotic” if in “drinking” form, it seems. Second, the packaging seems to have disappeared entirely. Kumquats don’t appear in the “exotic” punnets shown on that website and that I remember from previously, and no sign of the Repo Man-style Generic Exotic Fruit (that’ll be two quid, please) item.
Most exotic thing on display were rambutans, which I confess I’d never heard of, which is an excellent indication of idiosyncratic exoticness. Apparently they’re a sort of anti-personal lychee, though I’m certain all you food sophisticates already knew that!
Persimmon, it seems. There’s another slightly clearer image on the item description.
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