As I have discussed about subtropical fruits in Bahasa Indonesia, now, I would like to discuss Indonesian fruits in English. I have tried all kinds of fruits I described below during my life in Indonesia. This is because my father really likes to introduce me with the richness of Indonesian fruits varieties and I know he’s really proud of showing me a new type of Indonesian traditional food and fruits. I do really enjoy and thankful to him!! I tried to describe the taste and link it to other food or fruit as I ever tasted before.
Podang Mango
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| slivered mango |
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| This is how my father taught me the way to eat Podang mango |
Indonesia has a lot of mango varieties, but this mango variety is very famous in Kediri (my father’s hometown). Kediri is a center of this mango variety in East Java. This variety of mango is so different as it has a very attractive skin color which is brightly orange and a bit reddish. The texture of its flesh is roughly fibrous. When the harvest time, the price of this fruit is so cheap and can drop to Rp.1500,-/kg. *what a poor farmer* The most interesting thing of this fruit is the way we eat. For the not-too-ripen-mango, we can cut it into a half and sliver its flesh on its peel, turn it over, and bite its flesh! So fresh!!! Other way to eat the ripen podang mango is by ramming the mango to the wall, massage it gently until u can sip the juice through a little hole on its pole. Not everybody can do this way because we have to be patient to be able to sip all the juice until the fruit dry. But this way is very challenging!! and you can feel a great sensation when u can get a lot of juice with a small flesh when u suck it! Hmm!!! Totally great fresh mango juice with traditionally and natural way of juicing.
Kepel
Kepel plants or buharol (Stelechocarpus buharol) is a Yogyakarta floral identity. Kepel fruit is princess-royal-palace favorite fruit because it is believed to cause sweat-scented fragnance and make no strong-smelling urine. Nowadays it is a bit difficult to find this fruit in the market. I tried once because my friend gave me. It taste like a mixture between mango and sapodilla. It’s difficult to describe because it has its own flavor. It’s only a fistful on size, that’s why Javanese call this fruit Kepel which means a fistful. It has a lot of big seed over its fruits.
Papakin–Wild Durian
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| Papakin |
This type of durian can be found in South Kalimantan. They call it Papakin. It has a softer thorn compare to normal durian. Its flesh has several colors. Normally durian has light yellow flesh, but u can find an orange, dark orange, red, even black wild durian flesh. The one I tried is the orange wild durian. It has a dry firm texture of its flesh. The smell is not as strong as normal durian and the taste is like buttery sweet-potato and durian.
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| Eating Papakin in South Kalimantan |
Toddy Palm’s Fruit
In Bahasa Indonesia, we call it as Siwalan. The texture of this fruit is like coconut flesh, has a not-clear-white thick flesh with juice inside. It is so fresh!! Its taste like young coconut.
Jack Fruit
We call it Nangka in Bahasa Indonesia. This fruit has a strong flavor, crunchy texture, yellow colored flesh. When it’s ripen, we can eat it fresh, mix it with other fruits, ice and coconut milk (as “es teller”), or we can cook it as a dessert or cake. A young jack fruit can be cooked as a dish with coconut milk (sayur lodeh) and served with rice.
Bread Fruit
For me, it taste like castanya. This fruit is big compare to castanya. Normally we fry or steam this fruit before we consume. Nowadays, a lot of research has been done to make flour based on this bread fruit. Further we can make any kind of cake based from bread fruit flour.
Rambutan
Rambut means hair. It is called rambutan because it has hair spread over its skin. I have not tasted any other food taste similar to rambutan. So I cannot describe it’s taste. In Indonesia, we have a lot of varieties of rambutan.
to be continued..
to be continued..