Buah Salak – A sweet juicy treat and childhood spinning toys made from the seeds

When I was young, a relative who came back from a trip to Indonesia gave me a bunch of Buah Salak (Scientific name, Salacca Zalacca). I was hooked instantly and love the taste very much. After eating the buah salak, I would keep the seed to make into a spinning toy that would emit high pitch sound when we spin it. First I drilled two holes on the seeds. Then I would tie a string around these holes and spin the seeds by pulling the string in a horizontal manner. Actually it is not easy to use a manual hand drill to make holes on the slippery seeds. I have hurt my hands countless time but I guess practice makes perfect. After years of growing up playing with my dad’s house hold improvement tools (not to mention lots of blood loss incident), now I am a household handyman! Ha ha ha! Buah Salak actually belongs to the palm family and it is also known as ‘snake fruit’ because of the snake scales like skin. Buah salak is widely cultivated in Indonesia. I found that the markets (Tamu) in East Malaysia have many stalls selling this nice juicy fruit. I bought these buah salak from a hypermarket. This is the chubby and round type. Some people claim that the longish ones are sweeter. Anyway, I found these chubby ones sweet as well. Mmmmmmm, pardon m ya, I am going to enjoy my Buah Salak now!