He wasn’t joking. It was a kooky little jungle smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood in San Diego. I loved it immediately. Not because I grow things or want a jungle of my own, I’m way too terrified of bugs and worms for that. But because it was so delightfully packed to the brim with focused and eccentric passion and care. It was absolutely spectacular!

Sometimes I catch myself going through life so annoyed with people – aggravated that the person I’m interacting with isn’t being more thoughtful or kind or attentive to whatever it is I think I deserve at that moment. And then I meet people like Jon at Encanto Farms and I am reminded that people are SO COOL and are into the most amazing things. I promise you, the person next to you is into something spectacular that you may or may not know about. The challenge is often to draw it out of people. I can be a little awkward in new social situations so he probably didn’t realize how thrilled I was to meet him and be there at his jungle oasis, but I WAS. I really was. I mean look at that Ice Cream Bean Fruit – so weird. So fantastical*. Have I mentioned lately that I love my hobbies?

*New Year’s resolution to make up more goofy words.

Ice Cream Bean Fruit

APPEARANCE 1 out of 5 stars

6-12 inch long greenish-yellow, lumpy pods with white fuzz inside surrounding 5-10 black sprouted beans.

AROMA 2 out of 5 stars

Raw peas.

TEXTURE 3 out of 5 stars

Peel has a fuzzy canvas texture to it (I did not eat this part), while the inside is full of big soft black seeds surrounded by fluffy and very moist cotton strands that mush together in your mouth.

TASTE 4 out of 5 stars

It pretty much tastes like a low-key simple syrup. Plain, sweet, sugar flavor.

OVERALL 2.5 out of 5 stars

Eating this fruit is like saturating a cotton ball in sugar water and then sucking on it. Neat I suppose, but not particularly appealing or practical unless you are starving in the wild in which case this would be a spectacular discovery.

I don’t generally associate glue with fruit. It just doesn’t cross my mind. So nothing about the fruit I picked up this weekend made me think I would be permanently bonded to it. Being the Fruit Maven, you might be inclined to believe that I know a thing or two about fruit. That’s what I tend to think. So when I encounter new fruit, I don’t generally do a lot of research first. I like to experience the fruit for myself before I read up on it. I would say 90% of the time, this method works just fine. But every now and then I realize I should probably take a few cues from the more experienced before I dive right in to something.

Case in point — the jack fruit. This a honker of a fruit. It’s huge and heavy (the one I had was about 20 lbs.) and has a hard outer skin, reminiscent of a young pinecone. I had tasted one of the arils (fleshy bits that you eat) in the past that a coworker had sliced up and it tasted tender and delicious with a nice musky, tropical fragrance. How hard could it be to cut one up myself? So I got out my chefs knife and convinced my friend to slice in to it (ah haha, I’m smart enough not to do it myself). Then we found the latex, or should I say super glue. It was insane. Everything started sticking together — fingers, knives, fruit, all of it. Soap didn’t even begin to address it. Yikes. That’s when I turned to the internet. One site said to use the smooth paper from a magazine to wipe away the latex. Sounded simple enough so I tried it. I ended up with a perfume ad stuck to my palm and no real answer when my friend walked back in the room, “What are you doing to that magazine?” Um…

Needless to say, if you end up with a jackfruit on your table or decide you want to buy one and give it a go, I highly recommend watching a pro do it first. I posted one of the most informative videos below about slicing in to it and getting all the way to the good stuff. It’s an adventure for sure. I am pretty sure two of my fingers are now permanently webbed.

APPEARANCE 2 out of 5 stars

Rather large, oval fruit bigger than a watermelon with spiky, hard skin. Inside consists of a core, rags (fibrous bits that surround the part you eat), arils (the fleshy edible section), the latex (oil absolutely everything that touches it), and seeds (can be roasted like chestnuts – though I’ve never done this. But I have never roasted chestnuts either despite annually singing about doing it.)

AROMA 5 out of 5 stars

Powerfully fragrant, which I understand only gets more pungent (with a hint of onions) when perfectly ripe. I think this one was slightly under-ripe so the fragrance was relatively mellow and an ideal combination of pineapple and mango.

TEXTURE 3.5 out of 5 stars

Somewhat crunchy but without the snap. Has a dense texture with some give to it and is slightly fibrous. I have tried one in the past that was much softer and a little juicier. There are lots of different varieties that provide different textures.

TASTE 5 out of 5 stars

Tastes pretty close to how it smells – a lovely combination of tropical fruit with mango and pineapple at the forefront.

OVERALL 3.88 out of 5 stars

The jackfruit is the largest tree bearing fruit in the world ranging from 10-100+ lbs. The flavor is absolutely delicious, but not exactly worth the work unless you make a party out of it. My strongest recommendation would be to befriend someone who grew up eating these and likes to cut in to them and do all the work, then just pop over and eat some. Also, invite me.

JACKFRUIT RECIPES

BBQ Pulled Jackfruit Sandwich (WOW)
Jackfruit Curry
Jackfruit Pancakes

COMMENTS

Have you tried cutting in to a jackfruit? How did it go? Did you accidentally glue your hand to something? Do tell…

So that’s what happened this weekend. I was invited to a lovely tea party hosted by Alice Q. Foodie and was instructed on the invitation to bring some cookies to share. I didn’t plan ahead so I didn’t have time to do something fussy like I normally do with little desserts. But I did have a bag full of white sapote on the counter because I needed to replace the awful photos that were on the post I put up a few years ago. Wondering what I could do with them that would show off my foodie street cred, I started scouring the internet. I didn’t turn up much in the way of sapote recipes, which makes some sense because truthfully they are amazing eaten right out of the peel, so there really is no reason to do much more with them. But I was determined.

Eventually I stumbled upon this banana cookie recipe and figured I could substitute sapote and gave it a go. As is almost everything I attempt in the kitchen it was way fussier and messier than I had anticipated and at first turned out just ok — a little cakey for my liking in a cookie.  So I sliced them up and cooked them again and suddenly I had a delightful little spiced sapote biscotti. I ate quite a few with my cup of coffee this morning while realizing that I completely forgot to take photos of the raw whole fruit. Ha! Typical.

Next time I will likely dip these cookies in some white chocolate because that just seems like the right thing to do. Let me know if you try this recipe. I think they would work with cherimoya, atemoya, sapote and of course banana.