Those who know me, know that I love fruit. And that I eat a lot of fruit. Therefore I was so much looking forward to discovering all the local fruits that one can find here!
But! Once here I was told to express cautious and buy fruits and vegetables only at the “big” stores and not at the markets or street stalls, because of formalin, which is a strong solution of formaldehyde.
Apparently it is a big problem here and everybody is concerned about it.
For example, I bought some funny berries (in a “big” store) that everybody is referring to as “local gooseberries”. They are called star gooseberries or leboir in Bengali. When I brought them home though, our cook (yes, we have a cook) told me that I should first put them in a bowl of water, add bit of vinegar and let them soak for about an hour before eating.
When I asked him why, he said that all the fruits and vegetables, even before cooking, should be soaked in water and vinegar to clean them off the chemicals.
That is a sad story.
Here is a sour story, because these star gooseberries are very sour and look like this
