Good Eats

So, Cambodian cuisine--it offers quite a few tasty dishes (and a few more...interesting options. Tarantula or fermented fish paste, anyone?). And one of the highlights of food in Cambodia is the number of yummy fruits available, most of which are unlike anything available in the States. Culturally, fruits are often given as gifts, or served occasionally as a dessert. They are also eaten as snacks, and many fruits can be eaten while unripe--when eaten this way, they are often dipped into a mixture of salt, sugar, and chili flakes.

Earlier this week one of the fruit trees in front of the FHCambodia Phnom Penh office produced some ripe fruit, and after ripening further in the office kitchen, we cut them up and ate them today. May I introduce you to--jackfruit! This is a jackfruit from our office tree--you can tell it's almost ready from the big split up the side, and when it's all the way ripe you can tell by the strong, jackfruity smell.

Jackfruits are large--most of them are the size of a watermelon (the big ones, not those little seedless ones). They can grow larger, though; according to Wikipedia, a single jackfruit can grow up to a length of three feet and weigh 80 pounds. In fact, they are the world's largest fruit that grow on trees. They are tasty, too, with a flavor like a mix of pineapple and banana (and I think some overtones of peach and strawberry). A jackfruit is hard and knobby outside, and lined with a number of seeds on the inside. Each seed is similar in size to a peach pit, and is surrounded by a "pod" of fruit. This pod is what you eat, although the seeds themselves can also be cooked and eaten, and are supposed to be similar to chestnuts. Also according to the internet, jackfruit is full of vitamins, minerals, cancer-fighting antioxidants and phytochemicals, and even fights ulcers and indigestion (and here I thought it just tasted good!). For more variety, jackfruit can be eaten cooked (some Indian dishes use it in curries), dried, or unripe, when it can be used as a vegetarian substitute for chicken (who would have thought?). If you need a few more factoids, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit or Google "jackfruit".

The one downside of jackfruit--eating it fresh leaves you with sticky fingers (in fact, unripe jackfruit pulp can be used as glue). This stickiness wears off after a few hours, but can't be washed, rubbed, or even hand-sanitized away before then. Luckily, the ingenious Cambodian people have figured out a simple and workable solution: human hair. Rubbing your jackfruity fingers through your hair in some magic way takes the sticky off your hands without transferring it to your locks. I don't know why, but I can vouch for it working!