#rambutan

These 12 fruits welcome the New Year, but they’re not your ordinary fruits found in the palengke or merkado.

Each one is considered an ancient ingredient, long found in our forests! Some used for sweets and wines, others to sour soups, or to compliment fresh fish like in kinilaw or kilawin.

These fruits come from trees that existed long before supermarkets, and even colonization. They fed communities, shaped early recipes, and many continue to grow in forests that protect us through flood control, climate regulation, clean watersheds, and other FREE ecosystem services - including free food.

heck yeah!!!

She looks like honey in borrowed light,

soft little smile, sweater pulled tight.

Gold in her lashes, sweet in her stare,

like something gentle, almost too fair.

But sweetness like hers always comes with a seam,

a flicker of danger beneath the dream.

Crack her open, see what you’ve found:

a rambutan heart, all fire-wrapped, crowned.

Soft on the inside, crystal and pale,

but guarded in spikes that shimmer and scale.

Pretty things like her don’t beg to be held;

they bloom just as bright when they’re left unquelled.

She burns a little louder, a little more red,

a spark of “don’t touch” in the tilt of her head.

So taste if you dare but handle with care…

not everything sweet was made to be shared.