I tried Cempedak for the first time and it is a marvelous fruit. It’s very similar to a jackfruit but smaller with less latex… well this one was, and it contains a lot of seeds surrounded by a chewy fibery pulp. But this cempedak… Oh man… it has the sweetness of perfectly caramelized crispy onions. I friggin love onions. The more I chewed on it the more complexities came out of it. Julia on the other hand said it tastes like rotten juicy fruit gum. It does have an intense onion smell to it. Like someone just diced up 100 onions in the room. Definitely doesn’t belong on the fruit bowl in the kitchen, but cempedak is officially on my list of top ten favorite fruits. Welcome, cempedak.
I planted a Lemon bay rum which is a medium sized tree and the leaves have a strong lemon grass / citronella like scent and it can be used for teas. After smelling the lemon bay rum it made me want to eat a tom yum soup. Before the sun went down I gathered some lemongrass, kafir lime leaf, galangal, a bokchoi, celery stalks, carrots, and parsley and I made tom yum tofu for dinner.
Originally posted on 2021-05-20, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.