Salak (''Salacca zalacca'') is a species of

palm tree The Arecaceae () is a family of perennial, flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are colloquially c ...

(family

Arecaceae The Arecaceae () is a family (biology), family of perennial plant, perennial, flowering plants in the Monocotyledon, monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbing palm, climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly k ...

) native to

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

and

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It is cultivated in other regions of Indonesia as a food crop, and reportedly naturalized in

Bali Bali (English:; Balinese language, Balinese: ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller o ...

Lombok Lombok, is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east. It is rou ...

Timor Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

, Maluku, and

Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...

.Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
/ref>

Description

Salak is a very short-stemmed palm, with leaves up to long; each leaf has a 2-metre long petiole with spines up to long, and numerous leaflets.

Fruit

The fruit grows in clusters at the base of the palm, and are also known as snake fruit or snakeskin fruit due to the reddish-brown scaly skin, which is removed before eating. Resembling a ripe fig in size and shape, it has a crunchy and moist consistency. The edible pulp inside, often compared to large peeled garlic cloves in appearance, offers a unique flavor profile. It typically presents a sweet and acidic taste with a notable astringent edge, which can vary significantly among different cultivars. The most recognized cultivars include the salak pondoh from

Yogyakarta Yogyakarta is the capital city of the Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by Hamengkubuwono, a monarchy, Yogyakarta is regarded as an importan ...

, known for its sweet flavor and dry, crumbly texture, and the salak Bali, famed for its moist crunchiness.

Cultivation

The salak tree has been cultivated throughout Indonesia, and there are at least 30 cultivars, most of which have an astringent taste and are sweet. Two popular

cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...

s are ''salak pondoh'' from Yogyakarta province (found in 1980s) and ''salak Bali'' from Bali.

Salak pondoh

''Salak pondoh'' is an important fruit in the Yogyakarta province on the island of Java. In the five years to 1999, the annual production in Yogyakarta doubled to 28,666 tons. Its popularity (compared with other cultivars) among local Indonesian consumers is mainly due to the intensity of its aroma and its sweet flavor even before reaching full maturity. ''Salak pondoh'' has three more superior variations, namely ''pondoh super'', ''pondoh hitam'' (black pondoh), and ''pondoh gading'' (ivory/yellowish-skinned pondoh).

Salak Bali

''Salak Bali'' is believed to originate from Sibetan village, in the highlands of Bali. It is commonly sold throughout the island and is a popular fruit with both locals and tourists. It is the only

monoecious Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system comparable with gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy, and contras ...

salacca ''Salacca'' is a genus of about 20 species of palms native to Southeast Asia and the eastern Himalayas. They are dioecious (with the exception of Salak Bali) and pollinated by Curculionidae beetles. They are very short-stemmed palms, with leav ...

and one of the few monoecious palms in the

Calameae CalameaeKunth CS ex Lecoq & Juillet (1831) ''Dictionnaire raisonne des termes de botanique'' 98. is a palm tree tribe in the subfamily Calamoideae. The type genus is ''Calamus (palm), Calamus'' and many of its members are rattans. Genera * ''C ...

clade. There are more than 15 varieties of Salak Bali, with tastes ranging from sweet as sugar (Salak Gula Pasir), sweet-sour like a grapefruit (Salak Getih) and sour like a pineapple (Salak Nanas). The fruit is roughly the size of a large fig, and has a crunchy and moist consistency. In some varieties the fruit has a slight

astringent An astringent (sometimes called adstringent) is a chemical that shrinks or constricts body tissues. The word derives from the Latin '' adstringere'', which means "to bind fast". Astringency, the dry, puckering or numbing mouthfeel caused by t ...

, starchy mouthfeel such as with Salak Gading; with other fruits such as Salak Gondok and Salak Gula Pasir, there is little to no astringency.

Salak gula pasir

The most expensive cultivar of the Bali salak is the ''gula pasir'' (literally "sand sugar" or "grain sugar", referring to its fine-grainedness), which is smaller than the normal salak and is the sweetest of all salak. As this variety of salak is known for its sweetness, it is sometimes fermented into Salak wine which has an alcohol content of 13.5 percent, similar to traditional wine made from grapes.

Gallery

Salacca P 071118 1165 ipb.jpg, Salak agroforest,

Bogor Bogor City (), or Bogor (, ), is a landlocked city in the West Java, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide.

West Java West Java (, ) is an Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten and the country's capital region of Jakarta to t ...

Salak_Bali_Gula_Pasir.jpg, Salak Bali Gula Pasir (Bali Sweet), 1 year old Salak_Bali_Gula_Pasir_2.jpg, Salak Bali Gula Pasir (Bali Sweet), 1 year old Snake fruit.jpg, Salak exported from Indonesia Salak pondoh super.jpg, Salak pondoh super cultivated in

Banjarnegara Banjarnegara is a town in Central Java, Indonesia and the seat of Banjarnegara Regency. It is 55 km from the Dieng Plateau region and a centre for ceramic arts. Climate Banjarnegara has a tropical rainforest climate A tropical rainforest c ...

Central Java Central Java (, ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia, located in the middle of the island of Java. Its administrative capital is Semarang. It is bordered by West Java in the west, the Indian Ocean and the Special Region of Yogya ...