Pangium edule is a tall tree native to the mangrove swamps of Southeast Asia (Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

). It produces a large poisonous fruit (the "football fruit") which can be made edible by fermentation.

The taxonomy of the tree is uncertain and it may also be classed in the Flacourtiaceae

Flacourtiaceae

Flacourtiaceae is a defunct family of flowering plants whose former members have been scattered to various other families, mostly to Achariaceae, Samydaceae, and Salicaceae. It was so vaguely defined that hardly anything seemed out of place there and it became a dumping ground for odd and anomalous...

 or the Violales

Violales

Violales is a botanical name of an order of flowering plants and takes its name from the included family Violaceae. The name has been used in several systems, although some systems used the name Parietales for similar groupings...

.

Ecology and cultivation

The tree requires many years to mature and the seeds are therefore most frequently harvested from wild trees, as it is not economically feasible to cultivate. Although poisonous to humans, the seeds of the tree form part of the natural diet of the babirusa

Babirusa

The North Sulawesi babirusa, Babyrousa celebensis, is a pig-like animal native to northern Sulawesi and the nearby Lembeh Islands in Indonesia. It has two pairs of large tusks composed of enlarged canine teeth. The canines in the maxilla penetrate the top of the snout, curving back toward the...

 (Babyroussa babyrussa).

Culinary uses

The fresh fruit and seeds contain hydrogen cyanide and are deadly poisonous if consumed without prior preparation. The seeds are first boiled and then buried in ash, banana leaves and earth for forty days, during which time, they turn from a creamy white colour to dark brown or black. The method relies on the fact that the hydrogen cyanide released by the boiling and fermentation is water soluble and easily washed out.

In Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

 and Malaysia, the seeds are best known as an essential ingredient in ayam (chicken) or babi (pork) buah keluak, a mainstay of Peranakan cuisine. Alternatively, the kernels may be ground up to form a thick black gravy called rawan (or rawon

Rawon

Rawon or Nasi Rawon/Rawon Rice is a strong rich tasting traditional Indonesian beef black soup. Originally from Surabaya in Indonesian province of East Java...

in parts of Indonesia): popular dishes include nasi rawan

Rawon

Rawon or Nasi Rawon/Rawon Rice is a strong rich tasting traditional Indonesian beef black soup. Originally from Surabaya in Indonesian province of East Java...

 and sambal rawan. A stew made with beef or chicken also exists in East Java. The Toraja

Toraja

The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 650,000, of which 450,000 still live in the regency of Tana Toraja . Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk...

 dish pammarrasan (black spice with fish or meat, also sometimes with vegetables) uses the black keluak powder.

Synonyms

• Indonesian:
  • Keluak, kluwak, kluak, kluwek, keluwek or kloewak (Dutch spelling).
  • Pucung or pucing (Sundanese
    Sundanese language
    Sundanese is the language of about 27 million people from the western third of Java or about 15% of the Indonesian population....
    
    )
  • Rawan or rawon (adjective referring to food prepared with the seeds of this tree)
• Malay:
  • Kepayang
  • Payang
• Kadazan:
  • Panggi