How to properly rot five common fruits

fruit-bowl-pixabayRumor has it that some people buy fruit and don’t eat it. It’s possible some people are eating Halloween candy that stores have been pushing since July. If I repeat this post periodically, trying in vain to get someone to read through it, just substitute Christmas, Valentine’s Day, or Easter for Halloween.

Every season has a reason to eat candy instead of fruit. In other words, this advice is berry timeless.

Once fruit is in the home and uneaten, there is no other choice but to let it rot. After all, it would be a crime to throw it away during its prime.

Here’s what I know about rotting fruit so you can do it properly.

Bananas: This is the easy one. Sit them out in the fruit bowl and depending on the heat and humidity, you can have blackened bananas in no time. This one is so common there are recipes that actually depend on rotten bananas, e.g. banana bread and muffins.
WARNING: Do not cook with them if they have liquefied.

Oranges: I find that if you pile them up you can have a gorgeous looking fruit bowl for weeks. No one is the wiser that underneath that façade exist ideal rotting conditions. Once you begin to smell acetone, however, it is time to don rubber gloves, dive in and chuck them into the compost pile.

Grapes: This is one of the rare fruits that rots rather quickly in the refrigerator. Buy them on Saturday, store them in the climate controlled fruit drawer, and forget about them. By the next Saturday you can have clusters of mushy, moldy grapes. Maybe the fact that they were six weeks old by the time they started the trip from Chile to Maine has something to do with their hastened demise.

Cantaloupe: One of nature’s most mysterious fruits, it is nearly impossible to determine if it is under-ripe, over-ripe or just ripe, If you notice some shriveling action with black streaks, sharpen up your shot put skills and fling this super fruit into the woods to fertilize the forest floor. And console yourself with a peanut butter cup.

Apples: These smell so good even your nose doesn’t know they have rotted. I store my apples in the cool cellar, and they can last for a long time. By the time I remember that hidden peck of plenty, they are soft, brown and jellied (but not the good kind you put on toast).
WARNING: Do not transport them in original paper bag since integrity of the bag could be compromised.

Before this topic deteriorates any further, I’ll ask readers what rotting tips can you share? What is your favorite Halloween candy? Do you count Skittles as one all of your daily fruits?

For more of my humor go HERE.

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7 thoughts on “How to properly rot five common fruits”

  1. When you buy pineapple chunks, you should eat 1/2 to 3/4 of them. The rest can be stored in the plastic container on a shelf in the fridge, preferably somewhere in the back, where they can lie forgotten. When little white things have grown all over them, you can open the plastic container (holding your nose with a clothespin), toss the contents into the garbage, wash out the container and put it into the bag of stuff to be recycled.

    As for grapes — I love grapes so much that I eat them compulsively. No grape is allowed to moulder in my house unless it was already headed that way when I bought them.

    1. I appreciate your advice on how to rot pineapple and can’t wait to try it, Kathy. Oh wait. I’ve done this except I tossed the pineapple along with its container without opening it. This is why I only use clear containers for refrigerator rotting.

    1. I’ve made friends with fruit flies Donna since it is part of the rotting fruit package. I have discovered when I get fed up with them, and let the fruit fly, the flies follow.

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