Rice + fruit = yuck

When you think of mixing rice and fruit together in one dish, don’t you wince and say “Ugh”? Most likely you’d say, “Yuck.” That’s what I said when I saw this most probably Jehovah’s Witness 7th Day Adventist officemate unashamedly having rice and freshly peeled banana (latundan) for lunch. It just so happened that he couldn’t eat meat or anything with scales on it because it’s something forbidden. Everything the canteen offered was inedible, no thanks to his religious persuasion. I thought he was crazy about combining rice and fruit, though. Couldn’t he think of an alternative meal, a real meal? …Until I realized that he’s not that silly.

I went home analyzing instances where I ate rice and fruit, and surprise! I found many:

rice (glutinous) + jackfruit + banana = guinatan
rice + mongo beans (aren’t beans technically fruits?) = champorado-style dish
rice + mango = suman at mangga
rice + coconut = any glutinous rice dessert with coconut milk

But then these dishes are all desserts, right? How about rice + fruit combinations that are real dishes, like lunch or meal ideas? None. I guess it’s necessary to define “fruit” here in the horticultural sense: crops that taste sweetish. If it's not sweetish, it's not fruit, but a vegetable.

Only the Japanese are creative enough to think like my Jehovah’s Witness 7th Day Adventist officemate. Don’t the Japanese put mangos in their sushi? Oops, that’s just the California version.

Rice and fruits just don’t make sense, at least most of the time.