FRUIT OPINIONS!

Posted byRandall 571 Comments on FRUIT OPINIONS!

Holy crap. This strip’s been up for 800 seconds and it’s already the most controversial thing I’ve ever written, beating out comics about cunnilingus, the Obama endorsement, and my making 4chan tiny on the map of the internet. It turns out everyone and their mother has a fruit opinion, and every one of those opinions is now in my inbox.

Just remember to keep some perspective. If you think watermelon is delicious, and I think it’s only so-so, the important thing is that we each find something we like. Who’s to say whose taste is right?

I am. You are wrong; watermelon is overrated.

Also, I have never liked cantaloupe. It brings down otherwise tasty fruit salads. There, I said it.

571 replies on “FRUIT OPINIONS!”

  1. There is something missing here. For a greater appreciation (as well as fear) for fruits such as the exotic coconut and the mighty grapefruit, you should also add a z-axis for how dangerous each fruit is when used as a weapon.

    Let’s see you defend yourself with strawberries next time someone attacks you on the street with, say, a watermelon.

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  2. Are you nuts?!? Bananas are way easier than apples! Eating apples involves messy juice spilling and a difficult, sticky core to dispose of. Bananas are tasty and easily disposable!

    Also, Pomgrenate is DELICIOUS. Blasphemy!

    Also: No mangos? Guavas? You be way to western-centric :`(

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  3. If I was a more enterprising individual, I’d be registering fruitopinions.com and starting a collaborative fruit-rating site.

    Perhaps fruit is the answer to finding people that you are *really* compatible with.

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  4. 1. Juicy Fruit is absent, as is Fruit By The Foot.
    2. Prunes are absent. I can imagine why.
    3. I heard a lot about the taste of star fruit, but that ought to fall under the “WTF?” category which would require a third axis to your diagram.
    4. For the most part, however, I agree with most of what you said.

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  5. I’d say the chart is fairly accurate, but you left out a major consideration on the difficulty factor: ease of picking. I don’t mean physically picking the fruit, but picking a good one from the market. For example, you practically have to try to get a bad banana, whereas you have to rummage through nearly all the peaches to get a good one. Also, fruit sold in batches (grapes and berries, mainly) require close visual inspection to achieve a batch with a high good to bad unit ratio.

    For me, this is even more important than difficulty of eating. I hardly ever buy peaches or plums, because it’s too much hassle despite excellent flavor and ease of consumption. Mangoes are hard to choose and to eat, making them doubly penalized.

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  6. One has to wonder weather this graph may be slightly different if the fruit was sampled in different regions. Fruit in Australia > Fruit in England for example.

    I was dissapointed where watermelon was put tbh.

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  7. Pingback: thisisablog » Blog Archive » Randall Munroe Doesn’t Like Grapefruit

  8. And, the obligatory Monty Python for how to defend yourself against all this fruit:

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  12. “cantaloupe = rockmelon”
    “silly americans and their need to name everything differently =P”

    Hmm. 2.4 million hits on Google for cantaloupe, 52 thousand for rockmelon. Both Wikipedia and the wiktionary list rockmelon as an Australian/New Zealand thing, the OED lists “Cantaloup” as the definition of “rock melon”, and the etymology of cantaloup(e) is older than rock melon, and mostly British.

    Also, according to the Cambridge Guide to Australian English usage (found on Google books), the name rockmelon is not even standard in that area of the world, and cantaloupe is more common in Victoria and Tasmania.

    I think this may be a better example of Australians and New Zealanders needing to name everything differently. Not that there’s anything wrong with that–dialectical differences are fine. Your dialect is not more correct than mine.

    Cantaloupes, BTW should be in quadrant 3. They neither taste very good, nor are they easy to eat.

    On another topic, the idea bananas (bland and nigh-flavorless phallic hunks of starch) are more delicious than a good orange is laughable. I think you need to try some clemintines, valencia oranges when they’re in season (which they aren’t right now), or blood oranges (which are). Delicious. Also, oranges aren’t hard to eat. The idea that they need to be pealed is the problem–you just slice them into 1/8ths, and bite in. It doesn’t take very long to eat, and there is little mess. In fact, your whole scale is screwy: how on earth is a banana harder to eat than a peach. Peaches either require a knife or are very messy. Bananas come with a convenient wrapper to hold onto the fruit with no mess and no tools. Why you would *want* to eat one is a different story…

    You need to try other varieties of apples. There are delicious (mostly) red apples, like Gala or especially pink ladies which blow most of the fruits on your list out of the water. Red delicious apples are not even worth eating if someone gives you one for free.

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  13. If anything good ever came out of the U of MN (aside from this new study that people who don’t own cats have a 40% higher risk for heart disease), Honeycrisps are it. They’re the only apple I’ll eat now.

    Also, I like tomatoes with sugar. So there.

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  14. Why are bananas difficult? They’re by far the easiest fruit to eat without washing your hands.

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  15. You haven’t tried proper tomatoes. What you can buy here is bland, tasteless and artificially ripened… to an extent. Not ripe enough, not even properly red.

    I LOVE tomatoes, ‘s why I don’t eat them when in US.

    As for grapefruit, it takes some technique. A short knife – about 4″ blade, not too sharp, to take off the peel off one side of a segment, then sllllluuuuurrrrrrrpppp eeeeh.

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  16. Bananas are delicious, you disgusting bastard.

    I like the positioning of blueberries though.

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  17. Hmph. We are completely missing another dimension to this compass. Namely that of texture (“pleasant”/”unpleasant”). Then everyone can weigh in on the whole peach v. nectarine or plum v. prune debate.

    –Patrick

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  18. Its amazing how controversial this is. Especially because I myself, was like, “No! That’s not right! Someone on the internet is WRONG.” But then i have to step back and say woah. Chart about one person’s opinion about fruit. Right.

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  19. Disregarding taste preferences, as mentioned above, I still find myself in categorical disagreement with many of the ease rankings. Tell, us, good sir, how much did apples and their ilk bribe you to be placed ahead of the oranges?

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  20. I demand a poster with this strip. Also, it absolutely has to say “Fuck grapefruit”.

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  22. >> Also, I have never liked cantaloupe. It brings down otherwise tasty fruit salads. There, I said it.

    Damn right.

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  23. Haha! This blag post made me laugh much harder than the comic. Seriously though, watermelons are great.

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  25. Where the HELL are apricots and plums????

    Not to mention the obvious omissions of mangoes and starfruit …

    What, you’ve never heard of starfruit?

    (Turns out Firefox’s spellcheck hasn’t either).

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  26. @Alturin

    Yeah, if you averaged everyone’s votes using cartesian coordinates, there’d be a fair few fruits that clustered at the origin. But if you average polar coordinates… 🙂

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  27. Oh, I forgot: Snapples, don’t taste good at all, and are a definite bastard to eat.

    Tastes like tin.

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  28. Further investigation (and also the title of the comic) leads me to believe that I’d previously overlooked Grapefruit. Surly, there is some sort of dire error, as many grapefruit are absolutely delicious. The sweet sort, the type with just a hint of tangyness are amazing. Not only do they have a more interesting, delicious taste than oranges, but they’re also larger, getting you more bang per fruit. If you want to eat just a bit more than an orange (but not *two* oranges), grapefruit is the optimum choice.

    @Alex To be fair, I also thought about my post for several minutes before stuffing it up there. Our simotanious reaction simply means that The Fruit Rater 5000 is a wonderful (if somewhat obvious) idea. “Great minds think alike.” (Also, “fools never differ.” I’m debating fruit. This is probably not a great mark in my favor.)

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  29. I don’t know why everyone is complaining so much, it’s his own opinion. He doesn’t need people telling him what fruits to like.

    And, personally, I think that bananas are too squishy and sweat, they look unappetizing with those freaky black bruises, and if you’re not near a trash can, you’re left with a sticky peel that you can’t throw away (unless you like littering).

    I agree about the coconut thing, as well. They just don’t taste good, and you have to scrape the meat stuff off the shell.

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  30. Edit: Uh, I meant to say “sweet” not “sweat”. I guess I didn’t notice it when I re-read my comment.

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  31. Best comic/graph ever! Even though you clearly have no idea that peeling a banana is fucking super easy, unless of course, if you don’t have imposable thumbs.

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  32. I’m not here to argue with you, however misguided some of your fruit-related thoughts have proven to be. That is not why I have seeken you out. I have found you to inform you of the following fact:

    When you say green apples are tastier than red apples, you are right the fuck on the money.

    Bask in the glow of an amazing job well done, sir.

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  33. And I suppose that would be “sought”. I fail at grammar much like how you have taken the fruit awesomesauce and made jam.

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  34. Great idea for a strip, I agree with the coconuts. But cantaloupe!?!? And after reading all the comments about them being disgusting or dreary, people have obviously never had a good cantaloupe. For me at least, it has this sweet flavor that’s not too overpowering, and it’s got a satisfying texture. Also great with whip cream or vanilla ice cream. But hey, each to his own.

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  35. Great idea for a strip, I agree with the coconuts. But cantaloupe!?!? And after reading all the comments about them being disgusting or dreary, people have obviously never had a good cantaloupe. For me at least, it has this sweet flavor that’s not too overpowering, and it’s got a satisfying texture. Also great with whip cream or vanilla ice cream. But hey, each to his o

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  38. I agree on the melon front. I think part of the reason why cantaloupes and watermelons are such a big part of fruit salads is that they’re cheaper than nectarines and strawberries.

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  40. On further review of the chart, would you care to explain how apples are easier to eat than plums? Or does this mean that you’re one of those who consume the core, since that is the only justification I can imagine. Similarly, tomatoes are at worst as difficult to eat as apples (I mean, if you insist on cutting them, that is your own affair, but it is by no means necessary), and at best far easier – that is, for those of us who do not munch on cores.

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  41. I think I’d completely disagree with your graph if it weren’t for pineapple. I don’t have anything against pineapple, but the requirement to follow it up with anti-histamines in order to stay alive negate both the deliciousness and ease factors somewhat.

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  42. You’re so right – watermelon is epically overrated. I think this is a quantity/quality thing. If watermelons were the size of oranges, nobody would eat them.

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  43. You, sir, are a crazy person (albeit one whose comics I love dearly). While I can accept that few people share my appreciation of the lemon.. Oranges, untasty? Are you JOKING?

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  44. YO GRAPEFRUIT IS DA ILLEST FRUIT LILBITCHES ALL CONCERNED ABOUT HOW SWEET DA SHIT IS BUT JADED ASS HEADZ LIKE ME LIKE THEY FRUIT LIKE THEY COFFEE, BITTER AND INVIGORATING

    STEP OFF BEFORE YOU GT FUKKIN WRECKED

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  47. I approve of the fruit-chart, though my own tastes differ, and I love the controversy of it all. Who knew fruit was such a touchy subject?

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  48. Despite all the canteloupe (or rockmelon) vs. watermelon controversy, whether it’s graph location or value added in a fruit salad, I’m surprised that honeydew hasn’t been mentioned. For some reason it’s always cut in chunks larger than canteloupe, it’s more difficult to tell when ripe (even after it’s been cut open) and has zero flavor. The only time honeydon’t has ever given back to the world was when it was smart enough to join forces with the cucumber (the world’s most second useless fruit) to create a nice, light fragranced shower soap.

    I can see why you omitted these two from the graph as they aren’t worth taking the time to plot, however I don’t want to see honeydon’t go unpunished for being the primary culprit in ruining fruit salads. Leave room for the pineapple.

    Also I agree that mango, kiwi, (and avocado) should help “flesh” out Quadrant II.

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