They started falling from the tree before I even noticed them, it having been a crazy busy few weeks with almost no daylight garden time and they being incredibly well camouflaged.
Averrhoa bilimbi. Originates in Malaysia and Indonesia, but now so assimilated it's considered indigenous and proudly claimed as a Thai medicine food.
The best part about the first year living in a 100 year old Thai traditional kitchen-medicine garden is (despite everything needing hacking down with a machete cos it grows soooo fast) is that every week something unexpected happens. Like the bilimbi fruit. In Thai, called ตะลิงปลิง (dtaling pling). One day a few weeks ago it was just a raggedy, non-specific tree getting in the way (and needing pruning) every time I tried to hang out the laundry in between monsoonal deluges.
And, just a couple of weeks later, the rains have passed and it is RAINING dtaling pling. Literally.
I picked up a ripe one (yellowish) to taste and probably it's never gonna make it as a table fruit. Not horrible - but think sour-ish starfruit but minus the nice starfruit shape and texture.
So, if it wasn't planted to eat, it was planted here by our old Thai land-lady's Thai parents as a medicine plant. And sure enough, a little detective work on (a) identification and (b) translating some online material from Thai, I discovered:
- Dtaling Pling is traditionally used as a treatment for venereal disease.
- The leaf decoction is taken as a medicine to help relieve rectal inflammation.
- Dtaling Pling fruit seems to be effective against both coughs and thrush.
- It helps regulate blood cholesterol levels and is used as both a tonic and a laxative.
- Dtaling Pling fruit helps control internal bleeding in the stomach.
- Dtaling Pling leaves made into a paste are used for itches, swelling, mumps or skin eruptions.
- Syrup made from Dtaling Pling is a cure for fever and inflammation.
- Dtaling Pling helps stop rectal bleeding and is used to alleviate hemorrhoids.
It was only AFTER I learned all this about its @naturalmedicine qualities that I spoke to the lady across the soi from our house, who asked why I wasn't eating it and could she take some. And, turns out it WAS planted to eat, just not as a fruit. Haha... the habitual western brain can be such a limiting factor sometimes! Thai people traditionally use dtaling pling to make a sour fish curry which is very popular in Lanna (northern Thai) cuisine.
Want to see-learn-try this? Here's a link with the full recipe-how-to: https://praneesthaikitchen.com/tag/cooking-with-bilimbi-and-carambora/
And so the theme of Food Is Medicine repeats and repeats.
As I searched online for some other dtaling pling uses, I stumbled on this: Bilimbi WINE recipe!!
Ingredients:
1/2 kg bilimbi
1 kg sugar
5 cups of water
1/4 teaspoon yeast
Method:
Boil bilimbi, sugar and water together in a bowl.
Remove from flame.
Allow it to cool down by 30 degrees.
After it got cooled add the yeast to it.
Once its completely cooled, pour it into a clean, sun-dried bottle.
Close the bottle with an air-tight fitting cap.
Seal for 22 days.
After 22 days, strain out the wine through a fine cloth (folded into 4-5 layers).
Keep this strained wine in an airtight container for another 22 days before use.
This wine has an original golden colour.
Bilimbi wine is ready to serve.
THIS I am going to try!! Stay Tuned for my Chateau Dtaling Pling post! 😋 🍷
Enjoy the bounty of Mother Gaia.
BlissednBlessed
Contributing to the @earthtribe. Cos it MATTERS.
The one we made in grade school was vinegar..i forgot the ingredients, but seems similar like those.
Some people love to eat them raw...but too much in one sitting can be bad to one's kidneys for its' oxalates content.
Good tip about the oxalates - yes - too much of anything is not great. Thanks for stopping by. :)
Welcome😄
One of my tropical favorites
Posted using Partiko Android
What do you do with it @ligayagardener?? Curious. :)
Keenly waiting to see what this one tastes like for sure! I love the rhyming sound of it. Your garden is so amazing. It's kinda like Jack and the Beanstalk in a tropical garden - turn your back and you've got this giant plant! Everything grows so much slower here, except in a short lived Spring - the garden is already looking tired here after that flush of beauty. Heat is well and truly here, but I'm eating pineapples and mangoes from Queensland until I look like one... yum.
By the time you get here (haha!!) I shall have a vintage of Chateau Dtaling Pling ready!! :) 🍷 Yes, the sing-songy-rhythming sound of the name tickles me too! :) Pineapples and mangoes? One can NEVER have enough!! Me? Picking up more pineapples today - one whole large pineapple costing around AUD $0.45. :) What's not to like about that?? (unless you are, of course, the farmer).
hahaha, yes it can. You better start eating it and to help yourself, add some honey or stevia to ease the taste, good luck!
I'm opting for a batch of tincture complete with raw Burmese mountain honeycomb, and a batch or 3 of Bilimbi wine :) 🍷