A Guide to Malaysian Fruits
Here I give an overview of Malaysian fruits but the list can apply to South-East Asia overall. Yet, the list is not complete, and I haven´t brought out all available fruits, it brings out only the less known ones for the Western world. I have to note that the journey took place in January. The variety of fruits can vary a bit according to the season and there are also varieties according to the type of fruit.
- Cherimoya (Annona cherimola), nona in Malay language, is a relatively big fruit. You can distinguish ripe fruit from it´s brownish skin (green when unripe). Choose a green fruit, it will become ripe in a few days. Do not keep cherimoya in refrigerator because it spoiles the fruit. Cherimoya has white pulp with bean-like seeds. The seeds are poisonous - a few chewed seeds can cause a serious poisoning. The pulp is very creamy and silky in texture. When tasting it, the fruit reminded me my grandmother´s house. After trying to figure out what made this particular assosiacion we agreed that the cherimoya has a mild taste of blackurrent skin mixed with the taste of papaya. We found this fruit to be a very good try. Unfortunately we managed to find it only once and it needed a few days for ripening.
- Starfruit / carambola (Averrhoa carambola), belimbing manis in Malay, is a star-shaped yellowish fruit. It has crisp juicy texture but not much flavour. Carambola is not sweet, only a bit sour and again, it reminded us one berry - this time goosberry. The small seeds are edible. Starfruit did not amuse us simply because it had too little flavour.
Durian (Durio zibethinus). In Malay also durian. "The king of fruits". When travelling in South-Eastern Asia, you may be sure that you find durian sold in the streets, small cuts wrapped into foil as well as you may find all imaginable durian flavoured desserts. The locals say: "Smells like hell, tastes like heaven." And indeed, durian is forbidden in most of the hotels and many public places because of it´s pungent smell. When we walked into a store, durian in backpack, the cashier usked us, if we have a durian with us! We were surprised that she noticed the smell because unopened durian was odorless for us. I also discovered that I am quite immune to durian smell. I didn´t notice it at all when passing by the durian stalls. People are divided into two: you either love durian or hate durian. Some people may like it in some period and then "grow out of it". The locals told us many durian-related stories. For example, a taxi driver told us that his sister does not visit her parents when she knows that durian is opened. The smell makes many people feel sick. Durian is also quite expensive fruit. We managed to get a smallest durian with 5 €, but it can cost up to 20 € per fruit. The price is justified with it´s big size. A durian can weigh up to 8 kg and it is covered with sharp spikes. Not an easy fruit to carry. Another taxi driver reccommended us that durian must be eaten in the evenings and not with carbonated drinks because it causes bowel gases. He added that durian has warming effect for the body. (Drive with taxi (Grab) it is a good way to talk to locals). So, we finally tried the king of fruits, what did we find? It had a salty, mold cheese smell. The taste reminded cheese as well, but rather a rotten cheese. In fact, the taste was such a compote of different compounds that do not conform to each other and therefore it can not be compared to anything. It was umami, salty, cheesy, moldy, sweet, pungent... The pulp was diveded into sectors what came with huge inedible seeds. The sector by itself looked and feeled like a bowel or a sausage. The texture was creamy and cheesy as well. Eelika found that it was the worst thing she had ever tried. Alex found two good aspects about durian - you can make "Portrate of Durian Gray" with it and the fruit comes with a handy handle so it is easier to toss into garbage. I found durian simply weird and unpleasant. And this proves something because I tend to like weird tastes. This is why I think that durian is the type of food that you can not like at the first time but it must be rather an adapted taste. I would give it a new try.
- Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), nangka in Malay is indistinguishable by appearence from durian for an untrained eye. Yet it´s flavour is completely different. Jackfruit is huge in size and has lumpy peel. As durian, it´s sectors are widely sold in the streets, wrapped into foil. Jackfruit has yellow flesh and fibrous gummy texture. It´s large seeds have milky texture comparable to brazil nuts but can cause dirrea when eaten raw. When boiled in salty water and roasted they can be a tasty dessert, similar to chestnuts. The whole plant contains latex. For this reason, the fruit is very sticky and gummy. Once we bought a whole jackfruit and while cutting it, the knife and plate became extremely and unwashably sticky. I don´t know how the locals prepare it without losing all their cutlery but I reccommend buying already pre-cut pieces to avoid being all sticky by yourself. Regardless being sticky as hell, the fruit is worth eating. It has this strong particular sweet gummy tutti-frutti smell and taste. It´s flavour is compared with pineapple, melon and banana. Because of it´s sweet taste you probaby do not want to eat more than a few pieces at once. I would just say it is tutti frutti, I liked it.
- Dragon´s eye/ cat´s eye (Dimocarpus longan), longan in Malay is a plum-size round-shaped yellowish fruit. Longan fruit is similar to it´s friend lychee but instead, they grow in a big bundle. (For unknown reasons we did not succeed to find any lichees during the journey). The pulp is white jelly-like and hides a black seed. The shell and seed are not eaten though the seed contains a plenty of saponnines for which it has been used as shampoo. Longan has juicy jelly-like texture and sweet taste. We found it very good matching into our gin tonic as well. Longan has good preserving abilities. After 10 days of preserving in the room temperature and refrigerator it was still as fresh as in the day we bought it.
- Rambutan (Nephelium lapacceum), in English as well as in Malay is also a friend of lychee and longan. Rambutan is outstanding for it´s furry look. The fruit is covered with pink furry shell which gives it a cute appearance. In fact rambutan has a mening of furry in Malay. The pulp is also white and jelly-like, taste is sweet-sour and juicy. I have to tell you that the seed tasted very good to me. I wished I could have eaten a few seeds but without being certain if they are edible at all, I abandoned this idea. Actually the seed is a bit poisonous but after roasting it becomes an edible tasty snack.
- Water apple (Syzygium aqueum), jambu air in Malay. (Fun fact, air means water in Malay). It is a pear-shaped red fruit with waxy skin. The flesh is white, crisp and watery, sponge-like in the centre. The fruit has no seeds and the skin is edible. Water apple has slightly bitter flavour and reminded us rhubarb without it´s sourness. Oberall the flavour was very good and quenched our thirst.
- Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), in Malay manggis, is another fruit that is forbidden in many hotels. We couldn´t figure out why. It did not have paricular smell or stickyness. Instead it is considered as one of the most delicious fruits. It has round shape and purple colour when ripe. The fruit is distinguishable by it´s leaf crown. The flesh consists of white sectors. Mangosteen tasted sweet at first, sour at last and was a compote uf unique flavours. It was juicy and a very pleasant try.
- Snake fruit (Salacca zalacca), salak in Malay is a fruit of salak palm. I didn´t know this fruit´s name at first but I was sure that is must be snake fruit. It simply looked like a snake because of it´s snake scale-like peel. Inside the shell you can find three yellowish lobes with inedible seeds. The pulp is crisp and sweet, not sour. It reminded the flavour of a jackfruit but with crisp texture and less taste. The flavour is also compared with banana, apple and pineapple. A good try!
- Dragonfruit/ pitaya (Hylocereus undatus), is not grown on dragons neither it is eaten by dragons. Instead it obtained it´s name because of it´s leather-like pink skin. The flesh varies from white to dark purple and contains plenty of small edible crunchy seeds. The fruit itself has little flavour and very soft texture. We did not find it outstanding simply because of it´s lack of flavour.
- Miracle berry (Synsepalum dulcificium) is an extraordinary berry. The little red berry contains a glycoprotein molecule miraculin, which after consuming, can make sour and bitter taste sweet. The effect lasts abot an hour or two and is obtained only when eaten berries within four hours after picking. The berry itself was told to be tastless but we found it to be extremely bitter. We tried it, the effect was real. We tasted various fruits after eating the miracle berry. To be precise, all fruits remained their flavour but were simply sweeter and less sour. The effect was greater in fruits that are sour naturally (lemon, passionfruit, pineapple) and was not detectable in fruits that are not sour anyway (banana, papaya). The sweetness was different though, reminding the bitter sweetness of stevia. Because of the fleeting effect, the berries can not be imported but if you want to give it a try, you can order miracle berry tablets from Amazon. Trying miracle berry was one of the to do things in my bucket list and when I saw it, it just made me shiver! I was hoping for greater effect but it was still an unusual experience.
Finally I would like to give some reccommendations where to find all these fruits. Just keep your eyes opened and be open to new experiences while travelling. You will find most of the fruits in local markets, night markets and supermarkets. When you happen to go to Penang island, I highly reccommend visiting Penang Tropical Fruit Farm. They have South-East Asia´s largest collection of fruits. You can see the fruits growing, accompanied with little information provided by the tour guide. The tour ends with "try as much as you want" fruit buffee with locally grown fresh fruits. Tropical Fruit Farm is also the must go if you want to try the miracle berry. Tropical Fruit Farm is not well advertised in local guides or internet but for me it was the best attraction in whole Penang! Just keep in mind to tell your taxi driver to wait for you, otherwise you will find yourself hitchiking back as happened to us, because it is really hard to get a taxi there and public transport does not go that far.
One final word, we did not manage to try ciku, which was told to be very tasty and super sweet, even forbidden for the diabetics. Anyway, all the fruits are worth trying, just go for it!
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