Savor the Moment.

One of the greatest things about Asia is the range of local fruits, vegetables and flowers that are indigenous to the tropics. On a trip to the wet market with my mother, I decided to snap a few photographs and document these fine specimens (and then eat them - well, at least the fruit).


Mangosteen, according to wikipedia comes from "a tropical evergreen tree, believed to have originated in the Sunda Islands and the Moluccas. The tree grows from 7 to 25 meters tall. The rind (exocarp) of the edible fruit is deep reddish purple when ripe. Botanically an aril, the fragrant edible flesh is sweet and creamy, citrusy with some peach flavor. Often heralded as the "Queen of Fruits"[1], mangosteen is closely related to other edible tropical fruits such as button mangosteen and lemondrop mangosteen."

Blah blah blah. All I know is that they stain everything bright crimson red, taste wonderful and are hard to open. (The trick is to crush it in between your palms.) My family used to buy them pingir jalan (roadside) on the way to Brastagi, a mountain resort town in northern Sumatra. I'd sit in the backseat with them, staining my face and hands. I looked like I murdered someone. It was great.

Terong Belanda is not a fruit I'm accustomed to, nor do I know how the locals consume it... But I found some interesting cocktails on a cool food blog called For the love of baking - you should check it out.


Soursop is one of those fruits I never did like... Granted, it means "acid bag" in Dutch, so you can't blame me. But this is what wikipedia has to say,

"Comparisons of its flavor range from strawberry and pineapple mixed together to sour citrus flavour notes contrasting with an underlying creamy roundness of flavour reminiscent of coconut or banana. The fruit is somewhat difficult to eat, as the white interior pulp is studded with many large seeds, and pockets of soft flesh are bounded by fibrous membranes. The soursop is therefore usually juiced rather than eaten directly."

We always had soursop juice boxes in the house, and unlike the mango or the lychee ones (which flew off the shelf) those miserable green boxes stayed in purgatory where they belonged.


Salak, otherwise known as snake fruit, is one of my favorite fruits from my childhood. You peel the snake-like skin off and eat the somewhat dry flesh within. They are small and hard, so they also make good projectiles. Not that I was throwing them at anyone... *taps fingers nervously*

Ahhhhh. Durian is the one fruit you've probably heard about. Underneath the hard husk worthy of the trebuchet is the pungent, smelly and rich flesh that made this fruit famous. In fact, the Durian is SO smelly that it's banned in many public places, such as offices, hotels and buses. For example, here's a cool photo from the Singapore MRT (Mass Rapid Transit):