The salak palm tree, native to Malesia, is covered everywhere with long, very pointed spines, which make harvesting the edible fruit a challenge. The stone fruits, about the size of plums, have a brown, finely scaled skin, to which they owe their name snake fruit. The paper-thin skin hides a very firm, crunchy, yellowish-white flesh, which tastes very good when ripe and has an aroma reminiscent of mango, lychee or (remotely) durian. It is eaten raw, but also candied (“Manisan Salak”) or pickled (“Asinan Salak”). Some cultivars of the salak fruit are fermented to a fruit wine. Unripe fruits taste sour and astringent, but are still processed into rujak, a spicy salad. The salak fruit is usually split into 3 segments, each containing a large, hard seed. These can be cooked and eaten when peeled.

• Edible Fruits Seeds
• Type of Fruit Drupe
• Culinary Group Stone fruits Tropical Fruits
• Taste sweet
• Trivial Names Salak, Schlangenfrucht, Schlangenhautfrucht, Snake fruit, Salak fruit, Salak Palm, Snake Palm, Fruit Serpent
• Size 6 cm
• Taxonomy Arecaceae (Palm family) Salacca zalacca
• Origin Malesia (Map)
• Locality Market 2019