Salacca zalacca, syn. S. edulis, Calamus zalacca We brought home a bundle of salak or snake fruit from Chiang Mai which I enjoyed so much. Well, the children for the first part liked it and ate a few but they are not so much for soury fruit so the novelty wore off after a while leaving me to enjoy this remaining bunch. The Principal isn't too fond of it either. Yay!I am feasting on it but decided to take a photo before I consume it all.
This fruit reminds me of the rattan fruit which is VERY sour. The Philippine rattan fruit has a lighter brown scaly cover and is quite abundant in Baguio city, up north of Manila. It is roundish and smaller in size. Salak has a red-orange scaly peel which reminds me of a snake. It is smooth and quite leathery to touch, if they could just find out how to preserve the color and texture this will be a good material for bags! Fancy that. Anyway, intrigued as I am for it was my first time to see and taste this fruit, here is a brief description from Wikipedia, which the kids looked up online. The fruit grows in clusters at the base of the palm, which is known as snake fruit due to the reddish-brown scaly skin. They are about the size and shape of a ripe fig, usually round with a distinct tip, with an edible pulp; to peel, pinch the tip of the fruit and pull away. The fruit inside consists of three lobes, each lobe containing a large inedible seed. The lobes look and have the consistency of peeled garlic cloves. The taste is usually sweet and acidic, but its apple-like texture can vary from very dry and crumbly (salak pondoh from Yogyakarta) to moist and crunchy (salak Bali). (Wikipedia) | 
