Salak (''Salacca zalacca'') is a species of

palm tree The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees ...

(family

Arecaceae The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees ...

) native to

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

and

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. It is cultivated in other regions of Indonesia as a food crop, and reportedly naturalized in

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

Lombok Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east. It is rou ...

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is East Timor–Indonesia border, divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western p ...

, Maluku, and

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

.Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
/ref> The salak '' Salacca glabrecens'' was featured on a Malaysian stamp, issued 27 February 1999 under the rare fruits series of stamps. It is a very short-stemmed palm, with leaves up to long; each leaf has a 2-metre long petiole with spines up to long, and numerous leaflets. The fruits grow in clusters at the base of the palm, and are also known as snakeskin fruit due to the reddish-brown scaly skin. They are about the size and shape of a ripe

fig The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...

, with a distinct tip. The pulp is edible. The fruit can be peeled by pinching the tip, which should cause the skin to slough off so it can be pulled away. The fruit inside consists of three lobes with the two larger ones, or even all three, containing a large inedible seed. The lobes resemble, and have the consistency of, large peeled garlic cloves. The taste is usually sweet and acidic, with a strong astringent edge, but its apple-like texture can vary from very dry and crumbly (''salak pondoh'' from

Yogyakarta Yogyakarta (; jv, ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠ ; pey, Jogjakarta) is the capital city of Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by a monarchy, ...

) to moist and crunchy (''salak Bali'').

Cultivation

The salak tree has been cultivated throughout Indonesia, and there are at least 30 cultivars, most of which have an astringent taste and are sweet. Two popular

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

s are ''salak pondoh'' from Yogyakarta province (found in 1980s) and ''salak Bali'' from Bali.

Salak pondoh

''Salak pondoh'' is an important fruit in the Yogyakarta province on the island of Java. In the five years to 1999, the annual production in Yogyakarta doubled to 28,666 tons. Its popularity (compared with other cultivars) among local Indonesian consumers is mainly due to the intensity of its aroma and its sweet flavor even before reaching full maturity. ''Salak pondoh'' has three more superior variations, namely ''pondoh super'', ''pondoh hitam'' (black pondoh), and ''pondoh gading'' (ivory / yellowish-skinned pondoh).

Salak Bali

Believed to originate from Sibetan village, in the highlands of Bali. Salak Bali is commonly sold all over the island of Bali, and is a popular fruit with both locals and tourists. It is the only

monoecious Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is conne ...

salacca ''Salacca'' is a genus of about 20 species of palms native to Southeast Asia and the eastern Himalayas. They are dioecious (with the exception of Salak Bali) and pollinated by Curculionidae beetles. They are very short-stemmed palms, with leave ...

and one of the few monoecious palms in the

Calameae CalameaeKunth CS ex Lecoq & Juillet (1831) ''Dictionnaire raisonne des termes de botanique'' 98. is a palm tree tribe in the subfamily Calamoideae. The type genus is ''Calamus (palm), Calamus'' and many of its members are rattans. Genera * ''C ...

clade. There are more than 15 varieties of Salak Bali, with tastes ranging from sweet as sugar (Salak Gula Pasir), sweet-sour like a grapefruit (Salak Getih) and sour like a pineapple (Salak Nanas). The fruit is roughly the size of a large fig, and has a crunchy and moist consistency. In some varieties the fruit has a slight

astringent An astringent (sometimes called adstringent) is a chemical that shrinks or constricts body tissues. The word derives from the Latin ''adstringere'', which means "to bind fast". Calamine lotion, witch hazel, and yerba mansa, a Californian plant ...

, starchy

mouthfeel Mouthfeel refers to the physical sensations in the mouth caused by food or drink, making it distinct from taste. It is a fundamental sensory attribute which, along with taste and smell, determines the overall flavor of a food item. Mouthfeel is ...

such as with Salak Gading; with other fruits such as Salak Gondok and Salak Gula Pasir, there is little to no astringency.

Salak gula pasir

The most expensive cultivar of the Bali salak is the ''gula pasir'' (literally "sand sugar" or "grain sugar", referring to its fine-grainedness), which is smaller than the normal salak and is the sweetest of all salak. The price in Bali is Rp 15,000-30,000 (US$1.00-2.00) per kilogram depending on time of year. As this variery of salak is known for its sweetness, it is sometimes fermented into Salak wine which has an alcohol content of 13.5 percent, similar to traditional wine made from grapes.

Gallery

Salacca P 071118 1165 ipb.jpg, Salak agroforest,

Bogor Bogor ( su, , nl, Buitenzorg) is a city in the West Java province, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.West Java West Java ( id, Jawa Barat, su, ᮏᮝ ᮊᮥᮜᮧᮔ᮪, romanized ''Jawa Kulon'') is a province of Indonesia on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten ...

Salak_Bali_Gula_Pasir.jpg, Salak Bali Gula Pasir (Bali Sweet), 1 year old Salak_Bali_Gula_Pasir_2.jpg, Salak Bali Gula Pasir (Bali Sweet), 1 year old Snake fruit.jpg, Salak exported from Indonesia Salak pondoh super.jpg, Salak pondoh super cultivated in

Banjarnegara Banjarnegara is a town in Central Java, Indonesia and the seat of Banjarnegara Regency. It is 55 km from the Dieng Plateau region and a centre for ceramic arts. Climate Banjarnegara has a tropical rainforest climate A tropical rainforest cli ...

Central Java Central Java ( id, Jawa Tengah) is a province of Indonesia, located in the middle of the island of Java. Its administrative capital is Semarang. It is bordered by West Java in the west, the Indian Ocean and the Special Region of Yogyakarta in t ...

Cultivation

Salak pondoh

Salak Bali

Salak gula pasir

Gallery

References

Further reading