It was an ordinary day. Standing in the grocery store with my iPhone in front of a huge chunk of fruit known as a Jackfruit. I asked the clerk if they sell many and he surprisingly told me they sell a few dozen a week. Wow! He then told me he had a Jackfruit smoothie a couple of days ago and it was delicious. I have never heard of the fruit or ever seen the fruit until today. Just isn't something that is part of the food scene in Lancaster, Pennsylvania...or at least not that I am aware of. Now, you must realize that I spent my entire life in Lancaster, the Garden Spot of America, as well as the home of the largest settlement of Amish farmers in the country. I am familiar with peaches, strawberries, cherries, plums, apples, pears, nectarines and even a pluot or two, but have never set eyes on a Jackfruit. Well, when I got home I had to "Google" it to see what it was all about. Seems that it is a tropical fruit which can be anything from a main dish when green to a dessert when mature. You can even make a sloppy joe from it and serve it on a bun. As I read on I found you can shred the fruit and make tacos with it. After taking a photograph of the fruit I went to pick it up. My wife quickly stepped in and told me the thing has to be too heavy for me to pick up, since I'm not allowed to lift more than 5 pounds due to recent back surgery.
How the Jackfruit grows.
OK, so I asked the clerk who told me that the average weigh is about 35 pounds and they recently had one that was close to 50 pounds. While reading about the fruit I found that a recent Jackfruit in India weighed in at 144 pounds. You can consume the Jackfruit at any stage of maturity. When it is in its earliest stages it is very fibrous and meaty, the perfect time to shred for barbecue, tacos or even Jackfruit "crab" cakes. When it is fully mature it's sweet and you can make custard from it, turn it into a parfait, make a smoothie using it or even make ice cream from it. The seeds of the fruit can be boiled or roasted. They are about the size of a small potato and you can make potato pancakes from them. Each fruit has close to 500 seeds in it. For those of you who are as old as me, and can remember when Juicy Fruit gum came on the market, it is said that the fruit was the inspiration for the gum flavor! Naturally, the fruit isn't native to Lancaster County or I would be familiar with it. It is grown in such places as India and Southeast Asia. It is very popular with the Asian community.
The interior of the fruit showing the large seeds.
My supermarket clerk told me that you can also buy it canned which means you can use it year round. The fruit comes from the Moracae family and is related to the breadfruit. The plant attains heights of 80 feet with a straight trunk branching out from the base. It is said that some grow in south Florida as well as Hawaii. I guess, since you can eat them in any stage of development, they rarely ever rot. I'm not sure if I'm willing to give the fruit a chance of not. I have a favorite fruit right now for every season and Jack fruit isn't one of them. Of course, if I bought one, it would probably last an entire season until I consumed the entire thing. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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