Frightfully freaky fruit

[Laksa]

Went to the market this morning and saw lots of weird and wonderful produce.

The buah salat. Fruit shouldn't rightfully be covered with snakeskin.

This lady's chopping up some green (unripe) nangka:

The pinang fruit:

The kalang (kanaa?) is one of my favorite foods. They look like big olives, but the flesh is yellow and creamy:

I have no idea what this is called, but it creeps me out. The kernels come apart, but I won't eat any fruit with eyes (that seem to follow you).

This banana isn't particularly freaky, but I shot it cuz it looks pretty:

They tell me this is assam, but it doesn't look anything like the tamarind I know:

I have more photos, hope to post more soon.

Yetty, it's good to be posting again

[Dejah]

I echo Yetti's sentiments! We were ready to send out an APB.

Those pictures look wonderful. I wish we had virtual taste capability on computers, even virtual scents would be acceptable!

[Pan]

I'm enjoying your pictures, David. I don't recognize all the fruits, but buah pinang is called areca nut in English. It's bitter and has narcotic properties, and is traditionally taken with sireh leaf and kapur (lime). A quick web search produced a page in which areca nut leads off an annotated list of "Non-Edible Nut-Like Fruits."

Nangka is called jackfruit in English, and the unripe nangka is used among other things for sayur, a savory dish of basically non-sweet vegetables boiled in coconut milk with chillis, which is used as a side dish to accompany curries and so forth. I believe I also remember it being cooked with belacan in Terengganu.

Those are some great rambutan at your in-law's! Enjoy all the wonderful, fresh Malaysian produce and the company of your relatives and friends, and have a safe remainder to your trip! (In other words, selamat jalan. )

[spaghetttti]

Absolutely fabulous, Mr. Wong! You're only about 2 hours away from me! I have not seen many of the fruits you've posted, they look absolutely delectable! Can't wait to see more.

Wave to Doreen

[Mooshmouse]

Laksa, your magnificent photos have me veritably salivating as they remind me of the fruits of my childhood in the Phillipines. Beautiful! And keep them coming!

[gingerly]

my favourite thread fruiting again !

[Laksa]

Yetty, my dad tells me he had a lot of salat when he worked in Indonesia. We brought some home with us and I was eager to try it as I'd never had it before.

"The taste of salat will grow on you," he said. "The more you eat, the more addicted you'll get". The fact that he needed to say that made me just a little suspicious.

The inside of the fruit:

Now, I confess I'm a big fan of durian. I have eaten and love to eat the stinkiest of stinky cheeses and salted fish (but not necessarily together). Belachan? Bring it on. I was fear-factor-cocky and wasn't at all prepared for salat.

The texture of the fruit is very much like that of raw garlic, slightly crunchy and juicy. It started off being mildly and pleasantly sweet, but it got very unpleasant very quickly. With apologies to the fans of salat out there, I can only describe the taste as cheddar that's been aged for many months somewhere warm and damp... say... in a wrestler's armpit.

"The taste will grow on you," my dad insisted, between large mouthfuls of the fruit. "You'll soon be fighting me for it."

I thought that to be a very remote possibility, as I gamely accepted another piece. This time, I took a bigger bite, thinking illogically that somehow "more" will equate to "better". I had to spit it out.

Salat 1, Laksa 0.

Buah salat, we will meet again!

[Sandra Levine]

The really great thing about Buddha's Hands is their smell.  For anyone who's smelled an etrog, the aroma is similar.  (I'm not sure what the English name for an etrog is

←

Citron

[spaghetttti]

...With apologies to the fans of salat out there, I can only describe the taste as cheddar that's been aged for many months somewhere warm and damp... say... in a wrestler's armpit....

"

←

David, more for the rest of them! The best salak we get here are from Bali, they're little and not as tart. Beware though, I've heard that they have certain medicinal qualities, so if one is besieged with Montezuma's, er, Mahathir's revenge, it'll cure what ails ya.

I've posted this elsethread, but do you have these rose apples (jambu mawar) in Malaysia? I fell in love with how fragrant and sweet they are. These came off my mom's tree, and we'll have to wait another 3 weeks or so for more fruit.

gingerly, we have them here in Indonesia, too!

Edited February 7, 2005 by spaghetttti (log)

[gingerly]

aah spaghetttti!i'm turning a wee bit green..wee kiwi green(cheating with image since my own shots were so ghastly!)

[spaghetttti]

oooh, you do tease, don't you? I've come across the green and golden ones, but not the ruby kiwis. They must be gorgeous!

[spaghetttti]

When it's rambutan season, dukuh is not far behind. This one was bright, sweet and juicy (I ate it after I took the photo ) Those segments look sorta creepy, no?

I'm not sure, but in Malaysia I think they're called langsat.

Edited February 10, 2005 by spaghetttti (log)

[Gastro888]

spaghetttti, you're so lucky to be able to eat that faboo fruit!!! More, more, more, please!

Oooh, do you have the cashew apples in season now?

[soupsister]

I love threads that are educational and awe-inspiring. I think all I have are apples and oranges in the fridge. But I have some interesting stuff in the pantry!

Does anyone know where to find melinjo nuts? I understand they come from a tree called gnetum gnemom.

[Pan]

Yetty, in Malaysia, langsat and duku are somewhat different from each other.

Maybe you could post something on the Shutter Bug Club thread explaining how you can get such wonderful clarity in a closeup.

[spaghetttti]

Gastro, today at the market I may have seen some cashew apples, wonder if that's what jambu mete is. They didn't look very appealing, so I passed them by and will keep looking around. Do you like them, what do they taste like?

Here are some tangkil or melinjo nuts for you, soupsister. These are readily available here to me, but I'm not sure about Indiana. Have you checked your local Asian grocer? I don't even remember if I saw them while I was in NY/DC. We use melinjo nuts in sayur asem, a sweet and sour soup, otherwise the shelled nuts are pounded flat, dried and when fried they're called emping. Good accompaniments for meals or eaten as snacks, they have a slightly bitter aftertaste which I find pleasing. How do you like to use them?

Michael, thanks -- but I just point and shoot, the camera seems to know what it's doing better than I do.

Edited February 11, 2005 by spaghetttti (log)

[soupsister]

Wow. At least now I know what I'm looking for. I can get the emping here but no luck so far with the melinjo nuts themselves. My local Asian grocer looks at me like I'm crazy, but he probably thinks that anyway (last time I asked for poontalai, and he did have that dried). They are destined to be used in a recipe with bitter notes, so I'm looking for that bitter element they have.

Thanks for the information.

[Wayne]

This is a wonderful thread. Great photos.

So much so that I trudged out in the snow yesterday to a Vietnamese

market and picked up two dragonfruit and some rambutans. Will try

both for the first time this evening. They also had some nice mangosteens

and custard apples.

[gingerly]

i haven't had those ruby kiwis either spaghetttti-will keep looking!this looks like a fun place to visit.(try bob's fruit quiz!)

[Gastro888]

Gastro, today at the market I may have seen some cashew apples,  wonder if that's what jambu mete is.  They didn't look very appealing, so I passed them by and will keep looking around.  Do you like them, what do they taste like? 

←

Hey spaghetttti!

Umm, they look like lil' bells - supposed to be bright red with a bottom that looks like a blossom end? They sell them at Eden Center - but they're paltry and pale pink there.

In Malaysia, I though they were tasty, but mild tasting. I liked them there. Any tropical fruit here pales in comparison to what you eat back home...

[Pan]

This is a wonderful thread. Great photos.

So much so that I trudged out in the snow yesterday to a Vietnamese

market and picked up two dragonfruit and some rambutans.[...]

←

Wayne, I warn you that rambutan generally travels poorly, so it's pretty unlikely that you'll have good rambutan in Canada. If you don't find the fruit very good, therefore, don't assume you won't like the real thing when you have the chance to taste it. As for the mangosteen, even a mediocre one will probably taste pretty good to you; what a wonderful fruit that is!

[lexy]

This is a wonderful thread. Great photos.

So much so that I trudged out in the snow yesterday to a Vietnamese

market and picked up two dragonfruit and some rambutans.[...]

←

Wayne, I warn you that rambutan generally travels poorly, so it's pretty unlikely that you'll have good rambutan in Canada. If you don't find the fruit very good, therefore, don't assume you won't like the real thing when you have the chance to taste it. As for the mangosteen, even a mediocre one will probably taste pretty good to you; what a wonderful fruit that is!

←

I've been able to buy pretty good rambutan in Toronto's Spadina Chinatown. Now granted, I've never been to SE Asia, so maybe I just don't know what good rambutan's supposed to taste like, but I've liked the stuff I've bought

[Wayne]

Wayne, I warn you that rambutan generally travels poorly, so it's pretty unlikely that you'll have good rambutan in Canada. If you don't find the fruit very good, therefore, don't assume you won't like the real thing when you have the chance to taste it. As for the mangosteen, even a mediocre one will probably taste pretty good to you; what a wonderful fruit that is!

←

[Wayne]

Wayne, I warn you that rambutan generally travels poorly, so it's pretty unlikely that you'll have good rambutan in Canada. If you don't find the fruit very good, therefore, don't assume you won't like the real thing when you have the chance to taste it. As for the mangosteen, even a mediocre one will probably taste pretty good to you; what a wonderful fruit that is!

←

[Yuki]

Most of the rambutan that I can get in the market is brownish so they probably are not that fresh. When I was in Thailand, I brought 2 lbs of rambutan and a durian(I smuggled it in....) for my midnight snack in the hotel. My throat felt like burning afterward...... What makes me mad about rambutan is that the skin always stick to the meat. Is there anyway to avoid that?