Me likka salacca zalacca
By Morgan Hannah, Life & Style Editor
The fruit itself looked like a large clove of garlic covered in snakeskin to be honest, and it tasted like a dry but sweet apple, pineapple, and banana combo and had an apple-like crunch.
You likka salacca zalacca? I likka salacca zalacca. Lemme tell you all about salacca zalacca!
Also known as snake fruit, this delicious treat is native to Indonesia but is also found in neighbouring countries Malaysia and Timor. I personally found them in a street cart down a dimly-lit alley on Gili Trawangan in Indonesia!
This bulbous-bodied fruit tapers off at one end, and much like a fresh fig it is entirely encased in shiny dark reddish-brown scalesâand sometimes even spikes! This deceptive fruitâs skin is quite thin and easy to peel off (if you know what youâre doing). And I didnât, so I had to get the owner of the cart to show me. First, she started by pinching the tip and breaking the skin. Then, she expertly peeled back the scalesâgoing against the grainâto reveal the light yellowish-white flesh underneath. The yellow-white lobes of fruit have a fine, film-like layer that can also be peeled away which she didâalmost like peeling a hardboiled egg. The fruit itself looked like a large clove of garlic covered in snakeskin to be honest, and it tasted like a dry but sweet apple, pineapple, and banana combo and had an apple-like crunch. Iâve since found out that some varieties can be drier and have a flaky texture (which Iâm glad I didnât get to eat), and others have a more spongy and succulent texture (which I think I wouldâve loved!).
Another name for salacca zalacca is the âMemory Fruitâ or âFruit of Memoryâ because it is loaded with potassium (much like a banana) and pectinâimportant nutrients for brain growth and development. The fruit also contains thiamine, iron, vitamin C, and calcium. And itâs quite the ideal vacation fruit for us Westerners trying on new foods overseas, as snake fruit has been known to stop the brown river from flowinâ, if you catch my drift.
In Indonesia, snake fruit is as common as apples and oranges are in the Americas; they are a regular household item. Snake fruit grows on short barrel-like palm trees with large spiked stems, which can grow up to six meters long. The fruit sprouts off the base of the palm tree in little clusters and can be eaten fresh, candied, pickled, canned, juiced, fried into chips, boiled with sugar into a sweet spread, or on the porch at 11 PM while listening to distant fireworks explode and swatting at mosquitos.
This has been Fascinating Fruit Factsâtune in next time to find out which fruit weâll be chatting about!
