Welcome to the Tropics
Salacca zalacca·Indonesia
Also known as: salak
Skin like reptile scale, flesh inside that crunches like apple. The flavour is unlike anything else — pineapple, molasses, a faint vanilla, with a clean tartness running underneath. Confronting on first sight, addictive on second bite. The Indonesian palm fruit you'll either love or pass to your braver friend.
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.
