Jackfruit / Jaca

Our wonderful friends, and babysitters of the hermit crabs, the Faimon family, introduced us to this amazing fruit a few years ago. 

I had the privileged of teaching both of their children during my time at Westview elementary. During this time, both kiddos would bring the most delicious and amazing vegan treats to share with me. One of these treats was a jackfruit BBQ 'beef' sandwich. I was impressed and amazed at the incredible versatility of this fruit. In Kansas, this fruit was available in a can, until most recently when we started to see it in the stores. Here in Brasil, they grow everywhere and kill many people each year due to their size and weight when they fall from the tree! 

One of my friends, and a parent of one of Zane's friends, has a jackfruit tree in her yard. When we were there visiting I was asking her what she did with the fruit. She said, "What people don't take, we eat." I giggled because we see this all the time. If a fruit tree is not completely encompassed in your yard, anyone will take from it! She said that they only eat it as the sweet fruit. She had never even heard of it being used as a savory type food! She told me she would save some for us!  

We forgot to take a photo of the whole fruit, so this is a google stock image for those that may be unaware. The one she gave us was about 5lbs. 

After watching some YouTube videos, we jumped in. Here is the fruit sliced in half!

After removing the stem, we began to pull out the pods of fruit. The sweet, smell is very strong. The boys were watching with mouths watering. 

Each pod had a seed. You had to pull apart the pod and remove the seed. It was very sticky, very messing, and very slick. Many seeds flew across the counter and floor!

When complete, we had a pile of the fruit. Some we ate fresh, completely different from what we had experienced in Kansas. Alden and Greg loved it. Zane and I were a bit overwhelmed with strong taste. Some we froze. I am thinking of using it to make some yummy muffins. Another mom shared that she made ice cream with it, much like we do with frozen bananas!

Overall, we were thrilled to have the experience of trying this fresh!