Carissa carandas # Beautiful Fruit

This is one of my nostalgia for childhood. My mother told me to take the black-and-white fruit like grapes if we visited the house of Wak Mariani, my oldest mother's sister. On his home page, he grew a few Renda trees which, as I recall, were always fruitful.

My siblings and I will be busy choosing the black-colored Renda because black fruit means it's already very renda, so even though it's a lot of sap, it tastes pretty sweet. In Medan and its surroundings, we call it Buah Renda, while in Betawi it is often called the Kerip Fruit. In some places in Java, it is called Buah Samarinda, while in English it is known as Christ's Thorn, Bengal Currant, or Christmas Plum.

Renda fruits and solid black color are delicious to eat immediately after being washed from the white sap like milk, then soaked briefly in a salt solution. The inside of the fruit is very juicy, with a fresh sweet and sour taste. But if it is still red in color, it tastes sour and is rather tart. Even better, Renda fruit cooked with sugar water spiked with cloves and vanilla is made into a delicious setup. Enter first for a while in the refrigerator, then serve. Hmm ... delicious. In addition, Renda fruit is also tasty to make pickles or sweets. At the end of this section we include a recipe for making pickles and candied fruit sweets, please try them, surely you like them. Although it tastes sour, Renda is rarely used as a mixture of rujak, maybe because of too much sap.

Renda, the scientific name is Carissa carandas, including the Apocynaceae tribe, which is a plant with a characteristic white gummy. Kerenda trees originated in India, now widespread throughout the entire tropical Asia region. Kerenda trees look very beautiful when they are fruitful. The small round oval leaves are dark green and look very beautiful decorated with pink fruits, shocking pink to dark reddish red. What else is added with small white flowers.

Looks like a very beautiful ornate tree. Kerenda tree is a woody shrub, about 1.5-5 meters high. The branches are thorny, slim and long, often sticking up the taller trees or dropping down. The leaves are round egg dark green, measuring 2.5-7.5 x 1.5-5 cm. The top surface of the leaf is shiny, while the bottom surface is light green and slightly opaque. The leaves are a bit like skin. The flowers are small, the crown is white, while the petals are pink, slightly fragrant.