Marina’s Malaysia: An Edible Jungle

Tropical Malaysia, lying between 2 and 7 degrees north of the equator, is a hotbed of fertility. Mangoes grow all year round, rice can produce two crops a year and jungle springs up wherever a little piece of land is left bare. It lines the motorways, covers the hills and threatens to encroach into gardens.

Over the course of my stay, I ate a huge variety of fruit, often from stalls that pre-cut and packed it in little bags, to eat in the car as you drive along – a step up from the usual UK roadside snacks of crisps, brownies or burgers.

Some of the less familiar types included rose apples – crispy, with thinner skins than an apple and a juicy, more citrus flavour; langsat – a pale yellow, grape-like fruit; green mango, a crunchy version of normal mango; jack fruit, large, oblong, chewy and exotic-flavoured; mangosteen, dark purple with white segments inside, a little like lychees; and calamansi, a small citrus fruit, green like a lime but a cross between a lime and a clementine.