I was recently browsing in my local Indian grocery, looking for out-of-the-ordinary ingredients to spice up my week's lunches. As I passed the melons, a familiar smell wafted toward me. The culprit was jackfruit, a fruit unfamiliar to most of us who are used to apples, oranges, and the like.
I first encountered jackfruit in the Philippines. It's a large fruit, a little larger than a cantaloupe, whose sickly sweet fruit is enrobed in a spiky green rind. The smell of the cut fruit is exactly like, no joke, Laffy Taffy: you can tell you're in for a sweet treat.
Before getting to the treat, however, cutting the fruit out of its rind is rather a process. The lobes of fruit are trapped in strong, sticky fibers which must be cut with a sharp knife. To top it off, the stickiness of the task requires some vigorous hand-scrubbing.
But the reward is worth the work. Tasting is believing.
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