Jackfruit - the inside story

Strange fruit just demands that you cut one up to find out what's inside, except sometimes you can be asked to leave when you decide to investigate new things in the lobby of a hotel (and no it was not a durian or here!).  So how fortunate for us that the local grocery had cut one of the jackfruit in half, perhaps because someone only wanted half or to see how ripe it was.  It actually looked pretty much as TPP would have expected in SE Asia. 

Jackfruit is a multiple fruit, many flowers whose fruits fuse during development into one fruit (usual example is the pineapple).  Here are two units of the mature fruit. the central core is at the bottom.  Two seeds each surrounded by their yellowish aril, a fleshy layer that is sweet and the part consumed.  The sort of fibrous bits to the right in this image are undeveloped floral parts, the knobby rind is across the top. 

Sorry about the reflections off the plastic wrap. 

Seed dispersal display

Fruits are flowers at the stage of seed dispersal.  As such many have attractive displays for the purpose of attracting seed dispersers with the promise of a reward, either the edible fruit itself or a fleshy seed coat, or a fleshy tissue surrounding the seed, an aril.  Here's the seed dispersal display of a sweet bay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana).  Magnolias have many pistils in each flower and each makes a fruitlet, usually a tough little dry follicle that opens along one seam to release or reveal one or two aril-covered seed.  The bright orange-red fleshy aril is both the visual attraction and the reward, the seed has a dark-brown tough seed coat. The seeds actually dangle on a thread to attract even more attention from birds who after digesting off the aril regurgitate the seed.  Displays like this can last days, and disappear quickly when a flock of cedar waxwings stop by.

Durian - Love it or leave it

Unless you have traveled and delved into the culture of SE Asia, you probably don't know a thing about durian. Durian is often called the stinkiest fruit in the world and my Thai friends tell me durian "tastes like heaven, but smells like hell".  Here's what TPP knows based on his experiences with durian. It is true the fruit has an odor that can best be described as similar to the smells wafting out of a sewer, a not uncommon smell in SE Asia. The fruit is a big spiny capsule about the size and shape of a smallish rugby ball, and this isn't the part you eat. The largish seeds are surrounded by a thick, creamy yellow-colored fleshy aril, the reward for seed dispersers, presumably primates and other arboreal mammals. Not sure who among our family tree finds the odor attractive? Apart from the fruit, the fleshy aril is not all that unpleasant to eat; it has a firm custardy texture with a sort of mild cheesy flavor, but rather insipid. It is not as horrible or as disgusting tasting as many people have made it out to be, but it is not on TPP's list of preferred tropical fruits either. TPP has seen durian for sale just once in the great Midwest, frozen (and no idea how it holds up to that) at the famous Jungle Jim's grocery north of Cincinnati. So TPP thinks that durian isn't as divisive as people make it out to be, although my Thai friends truly relish it and were happy to eat my share.   

 Image courtesy of Yun Huang Yong, Wikimedia Creative Commons.