The Lontar Palm

On the road going south from Parepare to Makassar in South Sulawesi, I saw roadside stalls selling a kind of fruit that's new to me and I stopped to investigate. For sale, beside these apple-sized fruits are bottles of a clear whitish liquid.

It's the fruit of the palm known locally as Tala, or Lontar in Bahasa Indonesia. Botanically it's Borassus flabellifer, in English - the Asian Palmyra Palm, Toddy Palm or simply Sugar Palm. Like the coconut the fruits, florescence, leaves, wood and all parts of this palm are utilized by man.

The inside of the fruit contains an edible jelly-like flesh that taste like young coconut, and like the coconut the sugary sap (nira) obtained from the florescence can be drunk fresh - tastes like soda or Sprite to me - or can be fermented into a potent beverage called arak or toddy. It can also be cooked to make sugar called Gula Jawa widely used in Indonesian cuisine. In the Moslem regions of Indonesia nira is sold fresh in mineral water bottles when it is still sweet and before alcohol has formed.

Bottle of Bliss

THIS is a bottle of actively - almost violently - bubbling, wonderfully sweet, thirst-quenching, happily intoxicating and naturally produced, therefore organic, drink called TUBA in the Philippines (sometimes LAMBANOG), aka BAHAR in Sabah and TUAK and TODDY (elsewhere in Malaysia). To Indians it's KALLU (கள்ளு) (കള്ള്) and Chinese drinkers call it YE JIU (椰酒) or YE HUA JIU (椰花酒) . It's made from the sap that oozes out of the flower (inflorescence) of the coconut palm when it is cut (a process known as tapping).

This sweet white sap is collected in a container attached to the flower stump and begins fermenting almost as soon as it is tapped due to natural yeasts in the air (spurred by residual yeast left in the collecting container). Within two hours, fermentation yields an aromatic and sweet beer-strength wine of up to 4% alcohol content. When allowed to ferment longer, up to a day, a stronger and more acidic drink which some people prefer is produced. Longer fermentation, however, produces vinegar which can only be used in cooking instead of stronger wine!

Thank you Mee for buying and sharing this bottle of bliss with me! ;)