You Know What’s Overrated? Lychees

Welcome to “You Know What’s Overrated?/You Know What’s Underrated?” where Dan and Nate give you their snobby opinions on everything from movies to games to food.

 

What’s Overrated: Lychees

Go into a trendy bar or “GASTRO-pub” and you’ll see this strange alien-like fruit invading everything from your cocktails to your ice cream for the simple reason that they seem exotic and cool. Once an item you ignored on your local Chinese food menu, this shit-ass produce had a viral boom of popularity in 2015, and has been forcing its way into our palates ever since. Cultivated in western Asian countries like Vietnam and China, these little “fruits” and their trees are classified as soapberries because they make fucking soap out of them. It’s a fitting description to keep in mind before slipping one of these slimy, pulpy things into your mouth because it provides context to the taste–which is like someone poured corn syrup into old bathwater. Their pallid, pink exterior suggests McDonald’s famous “pink slime” more than something that came from the earth. The wikipedia article on lychees describes their taste as “perfume like” which brings to mind dangerous chemicals and unregulated animal testing. Ice cream, lemonade, gin cocktails, jelly–nothing is safe from the lychee’s disgusting onslaught.

My first encounter with these testicle-shaped shit-berries happened before they were a standard in yuppie watering holes. My wife ordered some at a popular Chinese restaurant. They came out suspended in water with ice in it. Throughout the rest of the meal, I looked on in disgust as their lurid bits seeped into the water and created a pink, milky slush. Their color seemed to be draining from them before my very eyes. When I tried one, the texture was of a half-melted rubber band that someone splashed with sewage water. Why in the fuck would you subject yourself to this?

Also:

Their rind-y exteriors are covered in FUCKING SPINES! You don’t eat things covered in spines!

Exhibit A:

A pufferfish, which covers itself in shitty spines to subvert predators.

Exhibit B:

A porcupine. Covered in spikes they call “quills” so you won’t try to eat it. (maybe you will).

At least when you open their scary looking shells they…

OH MY GOD!! What sort of Ridley Scott movie prop is that shit!? Get it away from me. Ew.

The only notable lychee event is entitled “The Lychee and Dog Meat Festival” in Yulin, China, where, you guessed it, they eat dogs.

But the soundest example I can give that you should steer clear from this awful fruit is this horrifying headline from CNN:

Lychees Behind Mystery Killer Disease  (!!!)

Look, Mother Earth, or sweet Gaia, or Landfill, or whatever you call this planet has blessed us with a bevy of sweet fruits that are delicious! Why would you waste your time chewing on something that looks and tastes like an enlarged frog’s anus? Additionally, why would you want that anus juice in your alcoholic beverages? Don’t you drink to relieve stress? Anus juice doesn’t relieve stress.