As you may have seen in previous episodes of Migrationology, I highly enjoy exotic fruit! Among the many fresh and unique fruits to sample is something known as a cempedak, also referred to at a chempedak or extremely officially as an artocarpus integer. This fruit, which is about a foot in length is widely available along the Malay peninsula, parts of Indonesia, and Brunei.
The fruit, like many other exotic fruits in Southeast Asia, has quite a seriously pungent aroma that to myself smells like a combination of urine mixed with sweet honey. That’s right, though not the most attractive description I’ve ever come up with, that’s really how a really ripe fruit can smell – and even though it smells like that, I simply love it and consider it one of my all time favorite fruits!
A cempedak is quite similar to a jackfruit – except a jackfruit is much larger in size, usually rounder, and also has green skin. A cempedak on the other hand is shaped more like a really big summer sausage and has scaly brown or golden skin. The fruit on the inside is very similar to each other, but as I’ll explain below, I find cempedak to be far superior to a jackfruit in flavor.
The first step is to purchase the exotic cempedak fruit. Once you have one you’ll need to cut it open. The outer shell is extremely sappy with glue like white liquid that can be a pain to wash off your hands. That being said, just go for it, as it’s well worth the sap on your hands to get to the edible portion. Within the string shell of a cempedak are little bite sizes pieces of fruit. Just grab a piece and start to eat the fruit while avoiding the large sized seed in the middle. The seeds can be boiled and eaten, tasting a bit like a starchy potato, but I don’t care for the seeds too much.
Cempedak fruit tastes like a combination of bananas and pineapple that’s been massively infused with the sweetest honey you’ll ever taste. It’s an absolute outstanding flavor and it’s nearly unbelievable that a natural cempedak can be so sweet and honey like. During this video I decided to eat the entire fruit, and it was quite a task but I did feel quite wonderful after polishing the entire thing off!
There’s an overview of the cempedak fruit, yet another exotic Southeast Asian fruit that everyone should try!
Don’t forget to check out both of my food and travel sites here http://migrationology.com/ & http://www.eatingthaifood.com/. If you love Thai food, grab a copy of my http://www.eatingthaifood.com/eating-thai-food-guide/
Music:
Song Title: In a Heartbeat
Author: Kevin MacLeod
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Download Link: http://music.incompetech.com/royaltyfree2/In%20a%20Heartbeat.mp3
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