Garlic snake
(Ying peeling a snakefruit at the Ibah hotel: Bali, Indonesia)
On one of the few short days we were in Bali, we succumbed to the lethargy of the afternoon sun and attacked the fruit bowl in our hotel room. You might think this was a perfectly relaxing way to squander a portion of the afternoon, but I assure you, there was more than one surprise lurking in there, aside from the ants. There were a couple of old friends in there, fruit that I knew the names of; red grapes, an orange and a banana. However, the orange wasn’t orange at all, its skin was a healthy shade of lime green, though the inside remained recognisably that of a small orange. The banana too was familiar, and yet rather different, being a mere couple of inches long, less than half the size of the British supermarket variety.
Once I had identified all the fruits known to me, it was time for us to tackle the ones that were slightly more interesting. There were three more; a yellowish, round fruit like a pomegranate, a small, waxy pear shaped one and one which I mistook for a fine rattan decoration. It is that one I have showcased here; the snakefruit. I had set it to one side, assuming it to be an inedible addition to the selection when Ying lifted it up for closer inspection. We managed to peel back the scaly skin to reveal what appeared to be a large clove of garlic. In order to communicate effectively what the flesh is like, I would describe it as having similar elements to garlic. It has the exact consistency of an oversized bulb of garlic, mercifully without the pungent taste. I remember it having a vaguely sweet taste, but I decided the texture wasn’t appealing and I conceded defeat early on.
The little pear shaped fruit turned out to be completely edible, skin and all, much like a misshapen nectarine with a pleasantly refreshing sour flavour. The inside was a peachy colour with blister red seeds forming a horseshoe shape along the wider end. The last fruit was the round, yellowish pomegranate affair, though when we opened it up, it seemed like an oversized passion fruit with seeds like frogspawn (visually, in texture and – I would imagine – in taste). The fleshy frogspawn seeds were attached to the inside with fingerlike protrusions; the inside of the skin looked like ghost white sea anemones, soft and they gave under a little pressure. I wish I could find out the names of all the fruit – the snakefruit is the only one we could search for on the internet, under ‘bali scaly fruit’. If you have any ideas, let me know as I have pictures of all of them!
This afternoon diversion did make me wonder how many other fruits I haven’t tried and where I might find them. In the last couple of years, I feel like I have been on a voyage of discovery in many ways, but certainly as far as food is concerned. To discover a new dish, or a fresh way of preparing food is one thing, to actually come across several new fruits in a single day is akin to finding a new animal on the porch, one that you didn’t even realise the existence of. It is both exciting and rather humbling. The world isn’t as small as I thought.
– Today Rosie is drawing and eating dumplings in Glasgow –
