Lanzones is a delicious fruit, that kind of is like eating a grapefruit. It is as known as langsat, duku or dokong. Lansium parasiticum is a species of tree in the Mahogany family. The species is native to Southeast Asia.
A long time ago, the fruit was known as poisonous. The story goes that there was an old beggar who was wandering a town. He was tired, weary from his hungry and exertion. He went into the shade of a tree and slept for a moment. He saw the lanzones above and ate some, and not long after, he threw up and died. That is why people avoided the fruit.
Years later, an otherworldly woman came to the village and danced around joyfully. She was beautiful, but her face was a little too long, her eyes too wide, her canine teeth a little too sharp. The villagers thought she was a nymph from the streams, or a fairy from their sun god.
She picked some of the fruit and the villagers expected her to die as soon as she ate them. She pinched the fruit with her fingers and started to eat away. She did not die and kept eating handfuls of the fruit. The villagers joined in with her and started to eat the fruit. The fruit was sweet and refreshing and they immediately loved it. To this day, the fairy’s pinch marks were left on the fruit and lazones is a well-liked fruit across the Philippines.