Snake Fruit

Snake fruit, or salak (Salacca zalacca), grows on a low palm native to Indonesia and Malaysia. Each fruit is a small pear-shaped pod wrapped in a brown, tessellated, scaled skin that genuinely looks like the side of a python. The skin is a defence mechanism, not a flavour clue.

Inside are two or three creamy-yellow segments around inedible seeds. The texture is unique in the fruit world — apple-crisp, almost dry, no juice — and the flavour is even stranger: pineapple, brown sugar and a faint vanilla, with a clean acidity that keeps it from cloying. Bali grows the famously sweetest variety (salak Bali); Java grows a tarter, more astringent cultivar.

Pinch the pointed tip until the scales split, then peel away in pieces like a hard-boiled egg. Eat the segments, discard the seeds. Brilliant on its own, or sliced into a Southeast Asian fruit rojak with chilli, lime and palm sugar.