FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
JAK FRUIT
Excerpts from Bender, Arnold E. 1990. Dictionary of Nutrition and Food Technology. Butterworths, Boston.
Tropical fruit that grows from the trunk and large boughs of Artocarpus integrifolia. A. heterophyllus and A. integra. both pulp and seeds are eaten. Analysis per 100 g pulp: carbohydrate 10g, protein 2.5 g, carotene 130 ug, vitamin B1 0.1 mg, nicotinic acid 0.4 mg. Seeds: carbohydrate 30 g, protein 3.5 g.
Excerpts from Hawkes, Alex D. 1968. A World of Vegetable Cookery. Simon and Schuster, New York.
The Jakfruit (Artocarpus integra) is a close relative of the Breadfruit, and like it is a member of the same family as the India-rubber tree and the commercial fig. A huge, handsome tree, it is set with unlobed leaves usually about six inches in length. When in fruit, a prolific specimen can provide a fantastic aspect, for the fruits-perhaps the largest of any plant known-are borne directly on the trunk and larger, older branches. Oval to oblong in shape, and set with six-sided green or brownish fleshy spines in tight array, they weigh from ten to more than one hundred pounds apiece.
The Jakfruit (Jackfruit and Jaca are other names) is highly prized in many parts of the Asiatic tropics.
The somewhat fibrous pulp has a ruberlike juice when immature, and preparation of a green jakfruit affords the enterprising chef the intersting prospect of being literally suck finger to finger. (Lighter fluid will remove this latex, with considerable staunch scrubbing). This juvenile Jakfruit flesh is utilized as a vegetable in curries, and is more often cut int sizable chunks and parboiled, then baked, when it is somewhat the texture of moist yet firm bread, with a rather positive and slightly unusual flavor.
The large seeds are surrounded by slick coverings containing a variously sweet or acid juice with a strong bananalike odor. Despite this, the coverings and their attendant liquid are sometiems incorporated into ornate tropical fruit salads. As in breadfruit, the seeds are, when roasted, somewhat reminiscent of chestnuts.
