Pummelo

As I complete a tour around Vietnam in September it’s the season, and they are everywhere. Stacked on roadsides, pouring out into the streets, piled high in baskets on motorbikes, and on altars in homes and restaurants, this thick-skinned citrus has a pith that can be as thick as one inch, revealing inside a grapefruit-like interior. There are red and pale greenish-yellow varieties. Each has mildly sour, subtly sweet citrus segments. The tough encasing membrane is peeled off before serving as the end to a meal, or the individual juice sacs are pulled apart into clumps and used as the bulk of a Pummelo Salad. Thai: som oh; Malay: limau bali; Vietnamese: btưởi