At first glance, it looked like the lemon of a chef’s dreams 🍋—a monster fruit the size of an arm! But when Aussie chef Melissa Palinkas sliced it open, the truth came out: nearly all peel, barely any pulp, and flavor that didn’t live up to the hype 😅 Still, she turned the disappointment into dinner and limoncello. Ever had fruit that fooled you? Full story in this article 👇
There are many things in life that make you say “Wow!” at first glance, but once you look closer, they turn out to be not what you expected. That’s exactly what happened to a chef in Western Australia named Melissa Palinkas. She likes to pick out fruit herself, and the other day she got excited when she came across a huge lemon!
Melissa shared that the lemon came from farmers she knows well. It was grown on the same tree as other, normal-sized lemons.
So how did this giant fruit appear when the rest of the lemons were regular? The farmers had no answer. They just shrugged—they were surprised too. The lemon weighed 2.6 kilograms and was almost as long as Melissa’s arm. Thinking about how much she could cook with it, she grabbed her biggest knife and got ready to use it.
But when she cut it open, the surprise continued—in a bad way.
Inside, the lemon had a very thick peel and barely any fruit. The pulp was about the same as in a regular lemon. It was a big letdown. To make things worse, the flavor wasn’t great either. Melissa spent some time thinking about what she could do with it.
In the end, she made a salad with ponderosa lemon, olives, and zucchini. She used the other half of the lemon to make limoncello.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
