Fruit
I promised my Mom I would take pictures of strage fruit that I devoured here in Indonesia and send them to her. Instead, I’m going to make the pictures and whatever I have to say about the displayed fruit available to anybody who might stumble onto this page with an empty stomach.
Today’s fruit is here. That was the before. There is the after.
(Don’t worry - no photos of me looking satisfied after eating.)
1. Jeruk Mandarin Thailand
Um, that just means "Mandarin Orange from Thailand." Nothing special about the taste, but that green skin is something else - so bright and inviting. I was pulled in by the green - it just grabs your eye and says "pay a few thousand more rupiah per kilo for me, take me home, and eat me." Like someone thought that maybe if they start selling green-skinned oranges, people will buy them because they are oranges that are not orange.
It seems that the Thai people know a thing or two about marketing. Oh wait, haven’t I heard something about that before?
But really, Mom, I just wanted to remind you that I am in fact getting enough Vitamin C.
2. Salak
See that weird brown thing in the photo? That’s like one of my favorite fruits ever. It’s called salak. I bought some in Yogyakarta the first time I travelled there in 1999, and immediately devoured the whole bunch.
Sebuah (one piece of) Salak might fit in your palm. It has brown skin that is almost scaly, thus the appelation of "snake fruit" it is often given. In the after photo you can see what happens when you peel it open - there is a white fruit that surrounds a large brown seed, which is not edible. There are usually three full pieces inside each scaly cover, though sometimes only two grow fully and crowd out the third which comes out shriveled.
The fruit has a light, sweet flavor - nothing too overwhelming, making it a great snack. Biting into it, it almost has the texture of fresh, ripe garlic.
My only complaint is that for a skin covering that looks so durable, it molders and begins to rot very quickly. I remember trying to sneak a few back into Singapore with me, opening up my bag when I got home, and finding that the tips had already rotted to a mushy brown pulp with mold over the skin. So, don’t count on me to bring any of these home.
June 29th, 2005 at 1:41 am
Since we are talking fruit, I want the record to show that one of my official nicknames is leeche. Why, ask you? Because I am brown on the inside, with white flesh and red hair. So actually, I should be a rambutan.
And on the topic of food in general, make sure to eat some martabak for me!!
June 29th, 2005 at 3:19 am
When I was in Singapore, I would bring home rambutan. If salak is “snake fruit” because of its scaly skin, rambutan should be called “ant fruit” because every damn time, I’d put it down in the fruit basket, and then there would be ants all over my desk escaping from the rambutan, where they had taken up residence at some point between orchard and market.
Of course, the rambutan is frequently more often known for its pubic hair-like appearance than its red color (see, http://curve-online.co.uk/discography/official/scan/pfruitcd.php)
so maybe stick with the lychee, okay?