08 January 2010

Tarap


Tarap is one of my favourite fruits since I was a little kid. It is a kind of seasonal fruit and we can normally buy it around mid-autumn festival, which is around September. When the season starts or ends, they are normally sour and not sweet enough.

I did not realise it is not a common fruit even within the same country. One day, we had our language class that we learnt different kind of fruits. My teacher was from another state of the country. She asked us take turn to tell a kind of fruit but we cannot repeat the same fruit that a classmate had mentioned. We started with apple, orange, grape until almost all kind of fruits that we known had been mentioned. One of my classmate brain storming and could not tell a fruit that never been mentioned. Suddenly, he can tell loudly ‘Tarap!’ We all clapped our hands and happy for him. Yet, our teacher did not accept this answer because she never heard of it. We all knew it and tried to convinced our teacher. Finally teacher asked us “Well, how to spell ‘Tarap’?” We all kept silent because none of us knew how to write it but we like to eat it.

After I left my hometown for so many years, I missed the tarap season every year. The only thing is I still can hear it over the phone every year from my family: ‘I just had my tarap and it is so nice, but unfortunately you can’t smell it. If you come back now, you can enjoy it as there are a lot here for free.’

When I started to play around with blog creation and deciding on a blogger name, I received the similar call. I was told nowadays its season not punctual anymore due to the global environment change.

I miss tarap again, just let me name my blog with my favourite sweet tarap although I am not going to talk about tarap in my blog continuously.

2 comments:

  1. Wah, never heard about Tarap....will try when I go to Sabah...:)

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  2. Tarap , Tarap , Tarap...
    Haven't mentioned this word for years...almost forgot how it tastes...
    It is one of my favorite too, other than durian , mangosteen, cempedak, rambutan, mango, "dragon eye", snake skiny fruit...and others which i still remember the smells and tastes but forgotten how to call them...

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