W/W - Jackfruit

For those from the colder climates who may not have seen this weird looking fruit, this is a jackfruit or nangka in Malay.

According to Wikipedia, the jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit reaching as much as 80 pounds (36 kg) in weight and up to 36 inches (90 cm) long and 20 inches (50 cm) in diameter. It looks somewhat like a durian minus the thorns.

Inside the rough exterior are yellowish, fleshy bulbs that some say, taste like a cross between a banana, pineapple and mango. The seeds can be eaten! Roasted or boiled in salt water, the cooked seeds taste like chestnuts.

Extracting the bulbs from the fibrous rind is a messy and sticky business as the fruit excretes an extremely adhesive latex substance that is difficult to remove. You have to first coat your hands and knife with coconut oil.

I've never bought an entire unopened jackfruit. I buy the flesh, cleaned and packed from the supermarkets. For those who have never attempted opening the enormous fruit, you probably need an instructions manual to disassemble the bulbs which are embedded in a fibrous mess of sticky filaments that look like the intestinal villi of an alien creature. You can't just yank the bulbs out - you need to detach them with an oiled knife or scissors and there may be as many as 100 to 500 edible bulbs in a single fruit.

Warning - Never ever do this while wearing your favourite clothes!