Bad, Ugly and Sweet (standard:travel stories, 802 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: May 22 2011	Views/Reads: 3133/1886	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A Story about Jack Fruit and Portugese Folly

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

saw a real one or at least saw a picture of it, very few know how a 

Jackfruit looks like. It is an enormous fruit that weighs up to 80 

pounds with prickly outer coat with shades of green to yellow green, 

hangs from the tree branches and the trunk. What is inside the fruit is 

totally misrepresented and grossly diminished by its look. To cut open 

the fruit is tedious because of sticky material that slows down the 

progress. One has to apply plenty oil to the hands and knife before 

handling the fruit to cut open to prevent white gummy latex like 

material sticking to the finger and the knife. Once the fruit is cut 

opened, a unique aroma comes out to either please some or totally put 

off others. The cross section exposes oval shaped slippery, shiny 

yellow flesh surrounding each seed that looks like a chestnut.  Long, 

thin, white ribbon like material intertwines like a loose net around 

the yellow flesh.  It is the yellow flesh is the sweetest part of the 

fruit. 

Why anybody has to go through all this?  It all about acquired 

taste.  Unless somebody was exposed to eating this fruit from 

childhood, it is impossible to enjoy its unique flavor. It is sweet 

alright but its aroma will put-off anybody who was not familiar eating 

it from childhood. 

The young unripe fruit is used as a vegetable. It is easy to 

cut open to use as a vegetable rather than as a fruit. The prickly rind 

is removed with a sharp knife and the inner content is chopped into 

bits and pieces and curried to eat with steamed rice.  It is more 

popular as a vegetable since the objectionable aroma associated with 

fruit is absent with the green unripe fruit. 

“It seems you were emotionally attached to this fruit,” said 

Derrick wrapping the fruit pieces with news paper and loading onto the 

Land Rover. 

“I am; you know I came from a region where these fruit trees 

were cultivated on a large scale,” “I never expected to see this fruit 

tree on the island and pleasantly surprised to see one.” 

“Perhaps the British have brought it here from India, you 

know,” “Your wife will be happy to share the fruit with you saar,” said 

Derrick shaking his head with a smile exposing his shiny white teeth. 

Next day morning Juggernaut jumped from the bed just to 

hear “Something smelling funny in the kitchen, have you brought 

something last night,” his wife was screaming. 


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