Jeruk Bali

Citrus maxima, C. decumana. I have bought these in London under the name of Pomelo, which I assumed was a trade-name invented by Jaffa until I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. In fact Pomelo as a species-name is first cited in 1858, but long before that the same fruit was called the shaddock (after a sea-captain who introduced it to the West Indies), the forbidden fruit (a more interesting name, but the Oxford English Dictionary gives no reason for it) or the pomple-moose (under this heading, the OED offers a fascinating essay in colonial-linguistic history). Pamplemousse is, of course, the French for grapefruit, and jeruk bali are indeed the direct ancestors of grapefruit and can be eaten in the same way. Most of them are white-fleshed, but pink-fleshed are also quite common. Regardless of colour, they vary enormously in sweetness. We had two trees in our garden in central Java which looked exactly alike; one produced delicious fruit, the other almost unbearably sour.