The
fruit I know as
sawo, which is the
Indonesian name for it, other people will probably
recognize as the
sapodilla,
chicle,
zapotillo or even some other name.
Having lived in the
tropics for nearly half my life, I find the
fruit that are available on mainland
Europe rather dull and regular. I'm spoiled in that way, I know, but there's nothing like a batch of
rambutan,
salak or
mangistan1 or a plate of
durian or
manga1 to finish off a good
meal. Not that I don't like
oranges,
pears,
cherries,
strawberries or other fruit readily available in the local
supermarkets, but there's just nothing that comes close to some
tropical fruit.
One of my favorites is the sawo fruit. It looks somewhat like the
kiwi fruit - nearly the same
size and
shape and just a tad darker. I have seen it described as "tasting like
cinnamon flavored
brown sugar". If
ripe enough the fruit is very
sweet and quite
juicy. Definitely one to try if you ever get the chance.
The three
seedlings I have growing in my room at the moment are
courtesy of the
bats living in the vicinity of the
Julia Beach Inn in
Kuta,
Bali. While whiling away the last week of our summer vacation in 2000, we were staying at the Julia Beach Inn, our regular stay when we went on
holidays during the years we lived in
Indonesia, years ago.
Shadowing the
parking lot was the same sawo tree I had sometimes
climbed in when I was still a kid. The
season for sawo fruit had not yet begun, so it wasn't possible to
buy them in the
supermarkets or the
pasar yet, while salak,
kleng-keng and durian and a couple of others were readily available. I had planned to bring home as many different
seeds as I could, so I could try and
enlarge my collection of
tropical plants at home (then consisting only of a single manga
tree-let and a couple of
banana plants). So I collected the seeds of the fruit we bought and ate, but every time I walked under the sawo tree on my way to the
beach or one of the numerous
stalls, I wished I could bring some seeds from that tree home.
One
evening we returned from having
dinner at one of the local restaurants and I was waiting beneath the tree when I noticed something dropping a few meters away from me. I walked over and picked up a half eaten, not yet fully
ripe, sawo fruit. I took it with me and added the seeds to my growing
collection. The next morning I went through the collecting bin the
gardener used to dispose of the vegetational
debris and sure enough I found more half-eaten sawo fruit. Which I of course then put to better use than feeding the flames.
I'm pretty sure it was a
bat or bats that dropped the fruit, even though I didn't see them that
night. Bats are pretty
common in Indonesia (and in most parts of the world), and Bali is no different. Besides, it was the perfect time for bats to be
feeding and the
marks on the fruit looked like they were made by the
claws and
mouth of a bat, instead of by the claws and
beak of a
bird.
1 The English seem to prefer "mangosteen" and "mango"
July 24, 2001