We had seen Jackfruit, the largest tree-grown fruit on Earth, occasionally in asian grocery stores, at asian market stalls, and on Wild And Crazy Food shows on TV, but we had NO IDEA what we would do with it if we ever wanted to eat one, so we had never tried.
Then we learned that it is the Number One Most Favorite food for elephants in South India. We even saw direct evidence of this in our visit to Coorg where the coffee plantations regularly plant jackfruit trees to distract the wild elephants from eating the sweet coffee berries growing in the understory below them…as well as seeds in the day-old elephant dung the staff biologist pointed out to us on our Nature Walk one evening along the resort’s golf course:
The staff biologist described how the elephants would stand up against the tree trunk to pick as much of the fruit as they could with their trunk, after which they would ram the tree to try to shake off the fruit they could not reach.
Honest to goodness elephants on the side of the road just outside the coffee plantations!
Finally our driver took pity on us as we drove away from the coffee plantations, and when he spotted a stand breaking down the fruit into the edible individual seed pods, he pulled over and purchased some for us, then taught us how to eat it. Hurrah! It was very good, tropical flavored, and an interesting texture similar to a soft green bell pepper (thick watery walls making a hollow around the big seed).
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