Toddy Palm Fruit recipe Asian palmyra palm Fruit Juice Sweet Dishes From Ripe Palm Fruit
Borassus flabellifer, the Asian palmyra palm, toddy palm, or sugar palm, is native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, including Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. It is reportedly naturalized in Pakistan, Socotra, and parts of China.
The conventional way this fruit is eaten is when the outer casing is still unripe while the seeds are eaten as the fruit. But if the entire fruit is left to ripen, the fibrous outer layer of the palm fruits can also be eaten raw, boiled, or roasted. When this happens, the fruit takes a purple-blackish hue and tastes similar to a Mango. The skin is also eaten as part of the fruit similar to how mango skins are often consumed along with the fruit. Bengali People have perfected the art of making various sweet dishes with the yellowish viscous fluidic substance obtained from a ripe palm fruit. These include Mustard oil fried Taler Bora,tastes best when fried in Sunflower oil (তালের বড়া), or mixed with thickened milk to form Taal-kheer (তাল ক্ষীর).
The Borassus flabellifer plant and fruit is known as Nungu(நுங்கு) in Tamil, Taati Munjalu (తాటి ముంజలు) in Telugu, Taale Hannu or Taale ningu(ತಾಳೆ ಹಣ್ಣು / ತಾಳೆ ನಿಂಗು) in Kannada, Tal gaha (තල් ගහ) in Sinhala, Tala in Oriya, Tnaot (Khmer: ត្នោត) in Khmer, Thốt Nốt in Vietnamese, Luntar in Bahasa Sūg (Tausug), Tari in Hindi, Tal (তাল) in Bengali, Pana Nangu(ml:പനം നൊങ്ക്)in Malayalam, Munjal in Urdu, Lontar in Indonesian, Siwalan in Javanese, Ta'al in Madurese, Tan (th:ตาล) in Thai, Akadiru by the East Timorese, Tao in Divehi, Tadfali (pronunciation variations are Tad-fali or Taadfali) in Gujarati, Targula in Konkani, Tadgola (ताडगोळा) in Marathi, Myanmar, Htan Bin , and sometimes Ice-apple in British English especially by the immigrants living in India. The fruit measures 4 to 7 inches in diameter, has a black husk, and is borne in clusters. The top portion of the fruit must be cut off to reveal the sweet jelly seed sockets, translucent pale-white, similar to that of the lychee but with a milder flavor and no pit. The sweet jelly seed sockets occur in combinations of two, three or four seeds inside the fruit. The jelly part of the fruit is covered with a thin, yellowish-brown skin. These are known to contain watery fluid inside the fleshy white body. These seed sockets have been the inspiration behind certain sweets Sandesh called Jalbhara (জলভরা) found in Bengal.