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Jackfruit

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Not to be confused with Durian fruit.

Jackfruit
Jackfruit tree with fruit
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
Division:
Magnoliophyta
Class:
Magnoliopsida
Order:
Rosales
Family:
Moraceae
Genus:
Artocarpus
Species:
A. heterophyllus
Binomial name
Artocarpus heterophyllus
See also: Mangifera caesia

The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is a species of tree of the mulberry family (Moraceae) native to parts of South and Southeast Asia. It is well suited to tropical lowlands. Its fruit is the largest tree borne fruit in the world[1], seldom less than about 25 cm (10 in) in diameter. Even a relatively thin tree, around 10 cm (4 in) diameter, can bear large fruit. The fruits can reach 36 kg (80 lbs) in weight and up to 90 cm (36 in) long and 50 cm (20 in) in diameter. The jackfruit is something of an acquired taste, but it is very popular in many parts of the world. The sweet yellow sheaths around the seeds are about 3–5 mm thick and have a taste similar to that of pineapple, but milder and less juicy.

Cultivation & Ecology

Jackfruit opened

The jackfruit (not to be confused with the Durian fruit) is native to India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It is also possibly native to the Malay Peninsula, though it is more likely that it was introduced there by humans. It is commercially grown and sold in South, Southeast Asia and northern Australia. It is also grown in parts of Hawaii, Brazil, Suriname, Madagascar, and in islands of the West Indies such as Jamaica and Trinidad. It is the national fruit of Bangladesh and Indonesia. All jackfruit plants are frost sensitive. The jackfruit bears fruit three years after planting.

The jackfruit has played a significant role in the Indian agriculture (and culture) from time immemorial. Archeological findings in India have revealed that jackfruit was cultivated in India 3000 to 6000 years ago. Findings also indicate that Indian Emperor Ashoka the Great (274–237 BC) encouraged arbori-horticulture of various fruits including jackfruit. Varahamihira, the Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer wrote a chapter on the treatment of trees in his Brhat Samhita. His treatise includes a specific reference on grafting to be performed on trees such as jackfruit. [2]

In Sri Lanka, particularly for rural poor families, a jackfruit tree is a fortune. The tree bears fruit for over six months, yielding many fruits over the course of the season. The fruit is a best substitute for rice, due to which the tree is commonly called "rice tree" by rural people.

Recently, the jackfruit has been considered as an invasive species in Brazil, specially in the Tijuca Forest National Park in Rio de Janeiro. The Tijuca forest being mostly an artificial secondary forest, whose planting began during the mid-XIXth century, jackfruit trees have historically made part of its flora since the park's founding. Recently, however, it was considered that the species had begun to expanded excessively due to the fact that its fruits, once they had naturally fallen to the ground and opened, where eagerly eaten by small mammals such as the common marmoset and the coati. As both animals also prey opportunistically on bird's eggs and nestlings, the supply of jackfruit as a ready source of food has allowed them to expand their populations at the expense of avian life. Also, as the seeds themselves are also dispersed by the same animals, this allows the jackfruit to compete for space with native tree-species; therefore the fact that, between 2002 and 2007, 55,662 jackfruit saplings have been destroyed in the Tijuca Forest area alone in a deliberate culling effort by the park's management; at the same time, 1,921 young trees were felled and 881 mature ones were killed through girdling [3].

Commercial availability

Outside of its countries of origin, fresh jackfruit can be found at Asian food markets. It is also extensively cultivated in the Brazilian coastal region, being commercialized in local markets. It may also be available canned in sugar syrup or frozen. Sweet jackfruit chips are produced by various manufacturers.

Parts

Skin
Jackfruits have prickly skins which in the Philippines are a source of imagination and creativity for woodcarvers. They use the figure of the jackfruit to make bowls and they add the prickly texture of the jackfruit's skin to make it more realistic.

Flesh
Jackfruit flesh is one of the most edible parts of the jackfruit for it carries the most fragrant smell and taste in the fruit. It contains a high level of fiber which can help cure illnesses like constipation.

Different varieties of jackfruit are acknowledged according to the characteristics of the fruits' flesh; in Brazil, three such varieties are generally recognized: jaca-dura ("hard" variety: bigger fruits, weighing between 15 and 40 kilograms each, harder flesh), jaca-mole ("soft" variety: smaller fruits, softer and sweeter flesh), and jaca-manteiga ("butter" variety: sweet fruits, flesh with consistency roughly between "hard" and "soft")[4].

Seeds
Jackfruit seeds carry the fibrous role above all the other parts of the fruit. Natives prefer to roast them or boil to make it edible for them. Current researches say that turning the seeds into flour adds fiber a little bit compared to eating it by roasting or boiling.

Dishes and preparations

Young jackfruit
Illustration of the size of jackfruit.
Jackfruit chips

Jackfruit is commonly used in South and Southeast Asian cuisines. It can be eaten unripe (young) or ripe, and cooked or uncooked. The seeds can also be eaten cooked or baked like beans; they taste similar to chestnuts. The leaves are sometimes used as a wrapping for steamed Idlis.

Young fruit

Unripe (young) jackfruit can also be eaten whole. Young jackfruit has a mild flavour and distinctive texture. The cuisines of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Vietnam use cooked young jackfruit. In many cultures, jackfruit is boiled and used in curries as a food staple.

Dishes

Also used in Vitamin Water

  • Gỏi mít: jackfruit salad dish in Vietnam.
  • Nhút mít: salted jackfruit popular in Central Vietnam.

Other preparations

  • Jackfruit chips (for example, the Nafiri brand from Surabaya, Indonesia).
  • Asian ice desserts (including Indonesian and Filipino versions).
  • Turon, a Filipino dessert made of banana and jackfruit wrapped in an eggroll wrapper.
  • Sometimes an added ingredient for cassava cake.
  • An optional ingredient in kolak, an Indonesian mung bean and coconut based dessert.
  • It is thought that jackfruit is the basis for the flavour of Juicy Fruit chewing gum.
  • Jackfruit candy.
  • Vitamin Water sells a jackfruit–guava (a Vitamin B and theanine) beverage.
  • Jackfruit smoothies or milkshakes.
  • Atu Kos is smoked jackfuit – a way of preserving it, to use when it is out of season in Sri Lanka.

Wood

A kutiyapi, made of jackfruit wood

The wood of the tree is used for the production of various musical instruments. In Indonesia it forms part of the gamelan and in the Philippines, its soft wood is made into the hull of a kutiyapi, a type of Philippine boat lute. It is also used to make the body of the Indian drums mridangam and kanjira. It is also widely used in the manufacture of furniture.

Jackfruit wood is also used in roof constructions and doors and windows in older houses.

Forest monks wearing robes of Jackfruit heartwood dye.

The heartwood of the jackfruit tree is used by Buddhist forest monastics in Southeast Asia as a dye, giving the robes of the monks in those traditions their traditional off-brown colors.[5]

Names

A variety of Jackfruits, called "koozha Chakka", found widely in the Southern Indian state of Kerala

The fruit is called a variety of names around the world. The English one, jackfruit, is generally cited as deriving from the Malayalam chakka or cakkai via the Portuguese jaca, the name for it used by the physician and naturalist Garcia de Orta in his 1563 book Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India.[6][7] A botanist, Ralph Randles Stewart has suggested that it was named after William Jack (1795-1822), a Scottish botanist who worked for the East India Company in Bengal, Sumatra and Malaysia.[8] The fruit, however, was called a "Jack" in English before William Jack was born: for instance, in Dampier's 1699 A new voyage round the world.[9]

South Asian names
  • Assamese: Kothal
  • Bengali: কাঁঠাল Cãţtal (National fruit of Bangladesh), Enchor (the unripe fruit, used in curries)
  • Bhojpuri: Katahar
  • Kannada: General : Halasu ಹಲಸು Unripe: Halasina Kaayi ಹಲಸಿನ ಕಾಯಿ Ripe: Halasina hannu ಹಲಸಿನ ಹಣ್ಣು
  • Tulu: Gujje (unripe) and Pilakkai (ripe)
  • Konkani:"Ponos"
  • Gujarati: Phannasa
  • Hindi: कटहल Katahal
  • Nepali: रुख कटर (Rukh kut-a-herr)
  • Malayalam: Chakka(ചക്ക)
  • Marathi: फणस Phanas
  • Oriya: Panasa
  • Maldivian, ސައްކެޔޮ sakkeyo (only the ripe fruitpulp is used)
  • Sinhala: Kos. Varaka / Vela (in its ripe state)
  • Tamil: Palaa(பலா) / Varukkai (old Tamil)
  • Telugu: General : Panasa (పనాస); Unripe: Panasa Kaaya (పనాస కాయ); Ripe: Panasa Pandu (పనాస పండు)
  • Sanskrit: Panasam
Southeast Asian names
East Asian names
West Asian name
African names
European and Latin American names

The earliest European citation of the name is chaqui in an account c. 1328 by the French Dominican missionary Jordanus.[6]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jackfruit.

References

  1. ^ Know and Enjoy Tropical Fruit: Jackfruit, Breadfruit & Relatives
  2. ^ Science in India with Special Reference to Agriculture P.M. Tamboli and Y.L. Nene
  3. ^ Livia de Almeida, "Guerra contra as jaqueiras" ("War on Jackfruit"), Revista Veja Rio, May the 5th.2007; see also [1]
  4. ^ [2] General information, Department of Agriculture, State of Bahia
  5. ^ Forest Monks and the Nation-state: An Anthropological and Historical Study in Northeast Thailand J.L. Taylor 1993 p218
  6. ^ a b Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, 1989, online edition
  7. ^ Anon. (2000) The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.
  8. ^ Deriving from "How Did They Die?", Ralph R Stewart, Taxon 33(1):48-52, 1984
  9. ^ "The jack or jaca is much like the durian, both in bigness and shape", A new voyage round the world‎, William Dampier, 1699, p320
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