sentul, santol or lolly fruit

some tropical fruits like the sentul, abiu, egg fruit and butterfruit which do not originate from malaysia or singapore are sometimes cast aside by singaporeans as being inedible or avoided because we do not know much about the fruit as we have not tasted or eaten them. however, some of these fruits that we side-step are actually sought after in their country of origin and in some of our neighbouring countries.

if you have been to qian hu fish farm you will have seen the egg fruit on some of the trees lining the road that leads to the farm. nobody seems to be interested in the fruit as the ripe fruits are strewn on the ground near the tree. along the same stretch you can also find the sentul fruit tree. again, because we know next to nothing about this fruit, the ripe fruits are left to rot. if you turn into jalan semangka, you will find many of the surinam cherry trees fruiting. the over-ripe cherries are all over the ground.

today, i took a drive to track 14 and jalan lekar as i wanted to check out the place mentioned in chun see's blog. it was at the junction of the two roads that i came across the sentul trees.

the sentul, which is known by the name 'santol' in the philippines, is a fruit popular with the filipinos. in indonesia, the same fruit is called kechapi. another name for it is the lolly fruit because you have to suck it to get the flavour. the seeds of the sentul are not edible.

the fruit looks like an over-sized duku. one variety has fruit as big as a softball. some filipinos eat the santol with rock salt. they also made the pulp into a jam, after removing the seeds.

duku-langsat galore at lim chu kang

they came on foot. they came on bicycles. they came on motor-cycles. they came in cars. they came in taxis. they came in trucks. they came in lorries. they came to invade the duku langsat on the trees along some of the roads in lim chu kang. for some, it was like a family weekend outing. armed with plastic bags, long poles and nets, they had a field day picking the ripe and big ones from the heavily-laden trees.

i tend to get duku-langsat mixed up with long kong, both fruits are available from sheng siong supermarkets. the long kongs are slightly bigger, juicier and sweeter, and almost seedless. some langsat can leave a slight bitter taste in your mouth. it is easier to tell duku apart from duku-langsat because of the duku's thicker skin and the fruit is also sweeter than langsat. as children, we used the skin of the duku as ammunition to whack our 'enemies'.

i saw one lone woman lugging a plastic bag full of langsat. she would have easily plucked about 3 kg of the fruit. some workers from the nearby farms were happily enjoying the fringe benefits by the road-side. quite a number were families and friends out on a week-end treasure hunt, were busily moving from tree to tree. besides duku langsat, there are also mangosteens which are also in season. but most of the mangosteens have however disappeared from the trees.

the sad thing about this fruit gathering is that some people in their greed to 'sapu' as much as they can, damage the trees, especially the mangosteen trees. because the tree is taller and some of the fruits are out of their reach, they pull down the whole branch just to get what they want.

as for me, i was there just to take pictures for my blog.

who gets to pluck the fruit in your hdb estate?

instead of ornamental trees or trees that provide shade, some housing and development board estates are populated by fruit trees like rambutan, mango, buah belimbing and guava. in keeping with the farming landscape image, the sides of the roads in lim chu kang, seletar, pasir ris, mandai and sungei tengah are also planted with fruit trees.

but who harvest the ripe fruits? today i called up the town council to find out and was directed to someone in the maintenance department. i asked if residents were allowed to pluck the rambutans on the trees in my estate. the reply: only members of the residents' committee are authorised to do it.

it is not worth the effort of the rc members to pluck them because the fruit is not in abundance and they will not be able to gather a presentable amount to distribute to the old folk home or any charitable organisation. may be this is the first year of fruiting and so the produce is a bit meagre. so far, i have yet to see a member of the residents' committee going around to harvest the rambutans.

i made it known to the town council personnel that those people whom i have seen enjoying the fruit of other people's labour did not look like rc members. i have seen a foreign national, who sweeps the car-park, helping himself to the fruit. two days ago, i saw a chinese couple eating the fruit from the same tree. and today i saw two deliverymen doing the same.

along the roadsides at lim chu kang, i have seen branches of the mangosteen trees damaged by person or persons who had been trying to get at the fruit. and there are those who unknowingly pluck the unripe ones and take them home, hoping that they will ripen over time.

with no residents' committee in such area like lim chu kang, who is authorised to pluck the fruit?

the soursop tree - durian belanda

today, i explored the sungei tengah area and was surprised to see many soursop trees with fruit ripe for the picking. was wondering why they were still there as the fruit is sold at sheng siong at $4/kg.

when we lived in a kampong house, we had a soursop tree growing outside the house, on the other side of the monsoon drain. it was not a very tall tree but it bore fruit throughout the year. we were not particularly fond of the fruit, so sometimes we let it ripen on the tree and it would fall to the ground, squashed.

normally, we would pick the fruit when it had a tinge of yellow. we would leave it laying around for a couple of days till the fruit was soft to the touch before we started to eat it. it is a fruit that cannot be kept for too long after it has been harvested. that is one of the reasons why you do not find many fruit stalls selling this fruit.

i tried unsuccessfully to look for it at fruit stalls in toa payoh, bukit batok and yew tee. the soursop tree may bear fruit anywhere on its trunk and branches. the malays call it durian belanda because it is covered with soft prickles. the chinese call it 'ang moh durian'. the fruit is more or less oval or heart shaped, sometimes irregular, lopsided or curved. the pulp has a slightly acidic, tropical flavour. the seeds are said to be toxic and the skin is not edible.

i remember those days when taman serasi food centre was still around, there was this friendly man from lim hin fruit stall who sold large mugs of soursop drink for $1.50. i heard his fruit stall is now at old airport road food centre.

i have come across soursop trees planted along the roadside at sungei tengah and lim chu kang. i wonder who gets to harvest the fruit when it is ripe. over at lim chu kang, it is quite difficult to find a ripening fruit on any of the trees. however, at sungei tengah many of the ripe soursops are left to rot on the trees.