Sarawak : Terap or Lumoh

Quite often, during the fruit season, the long house communities will happily offer their guests an afternoon snack made up of fruits and tea. Normally it would be Osborne biscuits or Cream Crackers and tea or coffee brought out in a large tray, a normal longhouse way of showing warm hospitality to any stranger or friend.

The fruit can be the terap which is served on its skin. Terap is a fruit made up of small fruitlets and hence a large number of guests can enjoy eating the small fruitlets by plucking them from the core with their hands.

The use of hands (after washing properly ) is polite eating etiquette in the longhouse and every one does it. So just a kind reminder that one should just enjoy using the hand when eating this fruit, and of course durians, chempedak and any cousin of the jackfruit can best be enjoyed by using our hands.

The terap and its cousins are  found in South East Asia and especially enjoyed by all indigenous people. During a glut season the terap is left to drop and birds will also get a share of the seeds. A wise , longhouse Iban man told me once, "Don't worry, God provides for us and for the birds and animals too. Perhaps that is why He allows a glut season."

Its scientific name is Artocarpus odoratissimus. 


Furthermore, an unripe terap can be dissected and cooked as a soup in the longhouse, making a very delicious and savoury side dish. It is very tasty and well loved. This is also a natural way of controlling the number of fruits on a tree. God is the ever God of Wisdom.

And we therefore must never waste what God has given us. 

Give praise and enjoy God's feast at the table. 

(For my Methodist friends, here is a Simple Grace:" For the bounty you have put before us, we thank you and we pray that you will bless us with good health from this nourishment. Thank you Lord.")