I went to the farm again with my kids. This time I went there to pick up some vegetables and noni fruits. What's *noni* fruit?
Noni fruit (*Morinda citrifolia*) has a very strong pungent smell when it's ripe, at least for me. My father gave it to me to try when I was a kid about 30 years ago (felt like million years ago). The smell once was felt like a torture for me. It was so bad.
My father made a juice out of the noni. Some time he just mixed some spices, mashed the noni, and mixed with water to drink. (I will put how to make it at the end of this article). And when it's not ripe, he also just crunched the noni (since it's quite hard), mixed with chili, salt, and tamarind.
*This fruit is good for you, he said*. I am not convinced.
Well, time went by. After some years, I "graduated" from the smell. Nowadays, I did not mind the smell of a ripe noni fruit. I grew to like its taste, but only when mixed with some spices.
## Going to the Farm to Pick up Noni Fruits
Today, I went biking again with the kids to the farm to get some noni fruit and few other things. Here are some photos of our journey to the farm, similar to what [we did previously](https://hive.blog/gems/@putu300/biking-to-the-farm). Only this time, the kids went into the rice field path and ride their bicycle on the path. On the mean time, I picked up some noni fruits.
 _Noni fruit I picked up from the tree in our farm._
 _The noni tree._
The fruits I picked up were not big, but they were old enough. It was going to ripe in few more hours. I did become curious why the noni fruits from our farm were so small.
I have seen many bigger noni fruits than the one I shared in this photo. I think there were too many plants growing on the farm that they fight for nutrition that made the fruit were quite small. Just my 2 cent.
I had some noni fruits I managed to pick up and brought home. Actually I don't mind eating them raw as long as it is ripe, but it is much nicer when I add some spicing to it.
So, here is my quick recipe to serve smelly noni fruit. First, mix salt, sugar, one chili and tamarind on the grinder. Add some water. Let all the ingredient mixed together. Then, mash the ripe noni fruit to mix with the spice ingredient. Put it in a glass, and it's ready to consume.
What does it taste like? You asked. Well, it's a mixed of salty, sweet, spicy hot, sour, and a kick of pungent smell. It's quite rich in taste if I may put it like that. In short, it's quite tasty. I did offer that to my wife who was not used to it. She said, no thanks!!! (with empahasis on the **no**)
## The Benefit of Noni Fruit for Health
Traditionally, the local people in Bali consumed noni fruits because they believe they have health benefit. The benefit are for example, to improve stamina and energy, to lower hypertension and to help with lowering blood sugar level.
Noni fruit can not be consumed by people of certain health condition for example, those who have problem with their kidney, because it contain a lot of pottasium. If you like to learn more, I put a reference at the end of this post.
So, that's all my story with noni fruit. Have you tasted the noni fruit before?
Reference: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/noni-juice#safety-side-effects
Cross posted from [My Story with the Smelly Noni Fruit](https://hive.blog/hive-148441/@putu300/my-story-with-the-smelly-noni-fruit)