Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine February 2019 | Page 65

Explore | Flavours
Eating fresh fruit may be
good for you, but it doesn’t
need to be served up the same
way every day. Preserving is
a convenient way of getting the
nutritional benefits
while adding a bit of variety.
Recently, a friend of mine who had been to
Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, gave
me a special gift from the region, a preserved
Thai guava. Locally known as manisan jambu,
the white flesh of preserved guava is well
packaged and completed with a small bag of
black spicy sauce called sambal rujak. The
sauce is made of palm sugar, tamarind and
chilli and makes for a great dip, adding a
spicy flavour to the mildly sweet and crunchy
flavours of the guava flesh. Marvellous!
In Medan, you will find many of these
preserved guava sold on the streets as the
whole round fruit, displayed within a big
glass box. Should you want to eat this
manisan on the spot, the vendor will happily
slice the guava for you, remove its seeds
and serve it with a side dish of sambal rujak.
Savouring manisan jambu is a convenient
way of consuming vitamin C, vital for healthy
skin and boosting the body’s ability to protect
cells. In fact, a single common guava contains
about four times the amount of vitamin C
as an orange. Guavas are also rich in
manganese, which helps the body to absorb
other key nutrients from the food we eat.
Indonesia is blessed with an abundance of
exotic, tropical fruits, ranging from guava
to carica (better known as mountain papaya),
salak (salacca zalacca), a type of palm
fruit known as snake fruit due to its
red-brown scaly skin, and the gorgeously
fragrant nutmeg (the spice is made from
the seeds of the fruit). It seems that the
abundance of certain fruit in some regions
has triggered creativity in the way it is
preserved and transformed into long-lasting,
delicious delights. Preserved fruits normally
come in two variants, namely wet
and dried sweets.
Besides a moist manisan jambu, there is a
wet variety of preserved carica, known as
manisan carica, from the Dieng Plateau in
Wonosobo, Central Java, which comes
with a tasty syrup. Just add some ice cubes
for a wonderful drink on a hot day. In
Wonosobo, around 25km from Dieng, you
can find many home industries producing
preserved carica under different brand
names. Some even have their own online
sites to serve customers living far away.
2
2 Manisan carica or preserved carica with its tasty
syrup makes a wonderful drink on a hot day.
3 Many kinds of preserved fruits can easily be found
in the markets and snack shops.
Preserved fruits
normally come in two
variants, namely wet
and dried sweets.
3
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