It is the ultimate ugly duckling story, a fruit that won the lottery. Five years ago, jackfruit was just a spectacularly ugly, smelly, unfarmed, unharvested pest-plant native to India. Some people ate it, but only if they had nothing better to eat. Kerala alone disposed of 35 crore (an Indian measurement of 10 million, used predominantly for – this is true – rupees, people and jackfruit) a year. Last year, however, Kerala exported 500 tonnes of the stuff, set to increase to 800 tonnes in 2019.
It is not the weirdest plant anyone has put in a tin (that would be ackee, which tastes like scrambled egg), nor is it the tastiest tinned item with such a low calorie count (that would be heart of palm), but it has cornered the vegan market, and thence the world, nonetheless. Pinterest named it one of the hottest food trends of 2017, so it should have fallen out of fashion by now (remember the doughnut peach?). But as long as veganism is on the rise, this gross-looking lump of fibre – fat, spiky and green, it could have been animated for a bit part in Monsters, Inc – will be its star.
I encountered it first in a Starbucks wrap. Now you can get it everywhere from Pizza Express to supermarkets. Vegan restaurants probably have a claim as the earliest adopters, but it took off so fast that there is not much in it. Anyway, that wrap was a mistake, because jackfruit has no taste to speak of: it is all in the seasoning, and global coffee chains cater to the blandest common denominator. It tasted of nothing, in other words: squashy, mealy nothing.
Before we go on any more jackfruit adventures – spoiler: we might end up liking it, a bit – a note on why it doesn’t taste of anything. A ripe jackfruit is, as the name suggests, a fruit, not unlike mango – much too sweet to be used as a meat substitute. The jackfruit we eat in these vast quantities is harvested and tinned unripe. The texture, which is its big selling point, is similar to artichoke (globe, not jerusalem), with fronds coming off it, which look a bit like meat after a very slow cook. Hence all the pictures on Instagram. The best way to experience a pulled-jackfruit burger with slaw and (vegan) mayo is to look at a picture of it, then eat something else.
Sorry, that was cynical. Basically, there are three ways to cook with jackfruit at home. The first, as above, is stewed to make pulled jackfruit. Properly spiced, it will become “fake-pork” or the base for a curry, depending on the spices. I did a basic BBC recipe for pulled jackfruit, which was easy as anything and quite quick, although jackfruit takes on a carrion appearance after about 20 minutes of stewing; I found it pretty disgusting. There was a phase in the 90s when everyone was on a diet and we all used loads of hot paprika on everything, for pretend indulgence, but you could always taste the fat-free goodness underneath it and there was a pervasive, watery feeling of having been cheated. This was like that (jackfruit is fairly low in calories: 95 per 100g). If unindulgent virtue is not your thing, you really have to figure out how to offset it in the sauce.
The best idea I came across was Pollen + Grace’s jackfruit courgetti pot, basically a mild green curry. My mister thought the texture of the pulled jackfruit was almost meaty: there was something sinewy in it that you don’t normally get from fruit or veg. I didn’t agree. There is dissonance between how it looks and how it breaks down: it is never chewy enough to satisfy your teeth. I kept wanting to put bread underneath it.
Method two: turn it into a patty, roll it in panko or similar and fry it like a burger. This was the breakthrough for its “inventor”, James Joseph, who was working at Microsoft in Mumbai when he thought it was a shame that nobody was eating this giant fruit that kept going off. Grinding the seeds into a flour and coating the flesh in it resulted in a burger that was “much crispier than the aloo burger at McDonald’s”, he said (first thought, obviously: I would love to taste an aloo burger at McDonald’s). There are now tons of recipes for jackfruit “crab cakes”, “burgers” and “meatballs”. You have to take the nomenclature with a pinch of salt, because it will never taste anything like crab or beef – and you have to add a handful of salt.
Third idea: you know when you are having tacos or similar and there is a base mulch, normally some kind of ragu, and you put all the interesting stuff – pickled cabbage, jalapeños, tomatoes and things that are nice – on top? Jackfruit can serve as your mulch. Just make sure you have a hell of a lot of tabasco.
Think of jackfruit as a triffid: they don’t even talk about farming it. It merely is, everywhere.
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