Our friends Karim and Laura, who stayed with us in Bali, are adventurous travelers. One of the things that Karim likes to search for is unusual, tropical fruit. Salak, or snake fruit, was a great find of his. Indigenous to Indonesia and Malaysia, it has reddish-brown scales that make it look like snake skin. Pretty scary looking. But when you peel off the skin, you'll find three white lobes resembling large garlic cloves and a round, black pit. The taste is actually pretty good--crisp and juicy with a sweet-tart taste, sort of like a lime.
Now here is the durian, one of the angriest looking fruits around. Also, the most controversial. Considered the king of all fruits in SE Asia, you either love or hate them. Karim, who loves them, was on the hunt for the Indonesian version. It has bigger and longer spikes than the one in this picture. I had forgotten that my partner had not tried this fruit before. After dinner, we all gathered around to marvel and open this thing, but my partner had to flee the table, because its smell, similar to rotting socks, had overwhelmed him. It's too bad he didn't notice that the Indonesian durian actually has some additional fruity notes to it. With a bit of coaxing and much taunting, he did come back to try the sweet, custardy insides. He wasn't completely sold on it, but hey, Karim and I loved it.
Photo credits to giftrap.com and mission-base.com
