YP junior reporters learn how to tell if their favourite fruits are ready to be eaten and which of them are at their most delicious
Junior reporters sample juicy fruits during a workshop at edible arrangements in Jordan.Our junior reporters went to the Edible Arrangements store in Jordan last Saturday. There they mastered the craft of cherry-picking fruits and the best ways to consume them.
They also sampled the store's famous fruit bouquets. Check out what they learned ...
Fruit + Bouquet
Many people celebrate special events with bouquets and fruit baskets, but some are simply not satisfied with ordinary, boring gifts. That's why Edible Arrangement has come up with a whole range of "fruitquets" - bouquets made out of fruits. Apart from being awesome, they help to save the environment. The store uses biodegradable packaging that could be fully degraded within six months. To reward "greenies", it has started a recycling scheme which allows customers to redeem a HK$88 voucher if they decide to return the packaging.
Henry Lui
Choosing the best honeydew melon
There are several ways to determine whether a honeydew melon is best to eat. When you softly pat a honeydew melon, and it makes a deep sound, it means the flesh inside is firm and mature. If you hear a hollow sound, the melon probably hasn't ripened yet.
Another way is to smell it. A noticeably sweet scent indicates a ripened melon.
Sometimes, you can even shake the melon and listen to it carefully. Over-ripened honeydew melons will make a rattling sound as their fibres have separated.
These methods also apply to cantaloupes and watermelons.
Nola Yip
Eating order
Little did we know we should eat fruits first - before we shove any other food into our mouths. That's because we can easily digest fruit. After fruit, we should eat carbohydrate-rich foods and starchy foods such as rice and pasta. They take up to two hours to be digested.
Then we should eat meat or fish, which takes about three to four hours to be digested. Shellfish takes longer - up to eight hours.
Last of all should come fatty foods, oily foods or sweets.
Charlotte Chan
Pineapples: ripe for the taking
In the fruit bouquet, pieces of pineapple were chopped into floral shapes. They were fresh and juicy. But how can you tell if a pineapple is ripe?
Dr Cherisse Yang, a gourmet raw food chef instructor, says we can peel the leaves off and place the pineapple about half a metre away. If we can smell a strong scent, and the leaves come off very easily, it's fully ripened.
Minnie Yip
Don't judge bananas by their appearance
Many of us think bananas are at their finest when they are spotless and yellow. We buy only the most yellow bananas.
But guess what: brown spots on bananas indicate they are the sweetest and healthiest. As the saying goes: "Don't judge people by their appearance." I guess that applies to bananas, too.
Tayyab Shahzada