The rotting fruit & vegetables of Palau

While I'm getting an extraordinary amount of days off in a row, you, the readers of 'pieces of eights' are benefiting with yet another post. This time it's on the rotting fruits and vegetables available for purchase here in Palau.

Previously I've mentioned about the poor quality and limited range of produce. It is pretty common to find rotting food for sale on the shelves in here. Some of it is quite disgusting at times too.

While some produce is grown locally (which I rate highly), I'd estimate that well over half is shipped over in containers. This often means that by the time the boat gets here the food is already decaying. Tomatoes and lettuce seem to be the worst affected.
 
Once at one of the two major stores we've seen the whole fruit & veg section completely empty. You definitely have to change the way you shop here, no more can you pick a recipe then go out and get what you need. Here you either go and see what you can find or you go with a vague idea of something and see what you can work out while shopping. Often we have to stop at three different shops to get enough to cook a meal with.



And unlike back home, there is another problem I've come across here. Often you can be fighting with local restaurateurs for various produce. It's a pretty common sight to see someone loading up their trolley with every single lettuce or every packet of pork available in a store. I got so annoyed with this once that when a guy was loading up with every can of cold coffee I delicately pinched one from his trolley while he was busy with the last arm load from the fridge. YOINK!

While slightly off topic, here is a story that sums up Palau. One of the hardware stores used to stock some small part for diving equipment, this part was in such high demand that it sold like hotcakes. So much so that the store often ran out of the part. So due to the problems they had trying to keep this item on the shelves they decided to stop stocking it! Madness!

These don't look too bad actually

P.S. After originally posting this my friend Inger from Inger in Palau sent this:  "Nathan forgot to mention the frenzy when a new container comes in and the mass text messaging that goes out through the ex-pat community. "Everybody, drop what you are doing immediately and get to Surangel's. Now!!!". Then everyone gets overly-excited and buys 3 lbs of avocados to gorge on which inevitably go bad in 2 days."



How could I forget!

Ok so this isn't fruit nor veg but it's pretty disgusting either way