40 Fun Facts About Jackfruit

Among all the fruits in the world that grow on trees, jackfruit holds which record?

The largest of all tree-borne fruits, a single jackfruit can reach about 90 cm (35 in) long and 50 cm (20 in) wide.

Shredded unripe jackfruit, with its stringy texture, is a popular vegan stand-in for which barbecue favourite?

Pulled pork is the dish it mimics best, because the mild unripe flesh pulls apart into strands. A cup holds under 3 grams of protein, far less than meat.

Jackfruit trees show a habit botanists call cauliflory, meaning their heavy fruits sprout from which part?

The trunk and thickest branches bear the fruit on short, stout stalks. Very old trees can even fruit from their soil-covered base.

Which thorny, strong-smelling Southeast Asian fruit looks similar to jackfruit but comes from an unrelated tree?

Durian is far smaller, typically weighing 1 to 3 kg, and its odour has got it banned from some hotels and public transport in Southeast Asia.

Jackfruit, a staple crop known locally as kathal, is the official national fruit of which South Asian country?

Bangladesh gets three foods from it: the green fruit is cooked as a vegetable, the ripe bulbs are eaten fresh, and the seeds are cooked too.

Why do cooks rub oil on their hands and knives before cutting open a whole fresh jackfruit?

Its sap is gluey: a white latex flows from the cut fruit and clings to hands and blades unless they are oiled first. Oil also lifts it off the pot afterwards.

Which long-running chewing gum has a mystery flavour that some people say resembles jackfruit?

Juicy Fruit has never had its model flavour confirmed, because its maker keeps the answer vague in advertising. The gum went on sale in 1893.

Which streaming service released Kathal, a Hindi comedy about police hunting a politician's two stolen jackfruits?

Netflix released the satire in 2023, with Sanya Malhotra as the inspector ordered to find the fruit before it ripens. It won India's National Film Award for Best Hindi Feature Film.

Jackfruit belongs to the plant family Moraceae, making it a cousin of mulberries and which Mediterranean fruit?

Fig trees ooze the same milky latex when cut, one of the few traits that the whole family shares.

The sweet smell and taste of ripe jackfruit flesh is most often likened to banana mixed with which fruit?

Pineapple and banana notes fill the opened fruit, a scent produced by a blend of volatile compounds in the fully ripe flesh.

The jackfruit is believed to have originated in the rainforests of which Indian mountain range?

Western Ghats rainforests are thought to be where the tree first grew wild, and people in India were already cultivating it at least 3,000 years ago.

English took 'jackfruit' from Portuguese 'jaca', which was borrowed from chakka, a word in which Indian language?

Malayalam chakka became jaca in a 1563 book by the physician Garcia de Orta, two centuries before the birth of William Jack, a botanist once suggested as the namesake.

Before it is cut open, a fully ripe jackfruit gives off a strong odour that botanist Julia Morton likened to what?

Decayed onions was her comparison for the unopened fruit, and she blamed that odour for the jackfruit's slow acceptance outside Asia.

Growers tap a jackfruit to judge whether it is ready to harvest; what does a ripe one sound like?

Hollow is the sound of a ripe one, which also turns from pale green to greenish brown and starts to give off its characteristic odour.

Which sweet stew, the signature dish of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, is made by simmering young jackfruit for hours?

Gudeg gets its sweetness from palm sugar and its reddish-brown colour from teak leaves added to the pot.

Which Filipino dessert of crushed ice, milk and sweetened beans usually includes sweet jackfruit?

Halo-halo, whose name is often translated as 'mix-mix', has no standard recipe, but jackfruit usually joins jellies, plantains and often a scoop of ice cream.

A dye boiled from jackfruit heartwood traditionally colours which religious garments in Southeast Asia?

Buddhist robes owe their traditional colour to it: sawdust or heartwood chips are boiled with alum, and the same dye is used on silk.

Which Indian state declared jackfruit its official state fruit in 2018?

Kerala made the move on a proposal from its agriculture department, which pointed to the economic and nutritional value of a tree grown there for centuries.

In which island nation did Arthur V. Dias, nicknamed 'Jackfruit Uncle', campaign to plant a million jackfruit trees?

Sri Lanka remembers him as Kos Mama. From 1918 he handed out packets of seedlings free of charge, and he is counted a national hero.

Which country contributed 'Nangka', its word for jackfruit, to the official list of names for Pacific typhoons?

Malaysia put the name forward, and it has since been given to several storms, including a powerful Category 4 super typhoon in 2015.

In which country's Tijuca Forest has the jackfruit tree, introduced from Asia, become an invasive species?

Brazil's Tijuca Forest lies in the mountains of the city of Rio de Janeiro, where the fruit goes by its Portuguese name, jaca.

Which Caribbean island gained the jackfruit in 1782, from plants on a captured French ship bound for Martinique?

Jamaica got its first plants as a prize of war, and the tree is now common there. Islanders sometimes cut an X in the tip of a fruit to speed its ripening.

Which French naturalist, remembered for an early theory of evolution, formally described the jackfruit species in 1789?

Lamarck named it Artocarpus heterophyllus, working from a specimen collected by the botanist Philibert Commerson.

Botanists call the jackfruit a multiple fruit, like a mulberry, because it forms from a whole cluster of what?

Flowers in a tight cluster each produce their own small fruit, and these mature together into a single mass.

Jackfruit pollination has been described as a three-way partnership between the tree, a tiny gall midge and what?

A fungus forms a film that the midges feed on, and the visiting insects help to pollinate the tree in return.

Because its unripe flesh is chewy and sinewy like meat, jackfruit carries which nickname in Bengali?

Tree goat is the name, since goat is a sinewy meat. The same texture is why tinned green jackfruit now sells abroad as a meat substitute.

Food scientists have found that roasted jackfruit seeds give off an aroma close to that of which prized tropical bean?

Cocoa is the bean they echo: fermented and roasted, the seeds gave off a chocolate aroma in a 2017 study that proposed them as a stand-in. More often they are simply boiled or roasted and eaten.

Cut open a ripe jackfruit and its sweet, fleshy bulbs turn out to be which colour?

Yellow bulbs, as many as 500 in a big fruit, sit among pale stringy strips, and each one wraps a single seed.

For savoury cooking, shoppers are advised to pick tinned young jackfruit that is packed in which liquid?

Brine on the label signals unripe fruit with a neutral flavour that suits savoury dishes. Tins in syrup hold the sweet ripe bulbs instead.

On which Indonesian island were palaces once built from jackfruit wood?

Bali built palaces of jackwood, as did Macassar on Sulawesi, and in Indochina the scarce timber was once reserved for temples.

Mixed with oils, sticky jackfruit latex makes which traditional paste that hunters smear on branches?

Birdlime made from the latex holds fast any small bird that lands on it. Heated, the same latex becomes a household cement for mending chinaware and earthenware.

Polished jackfruit timber, which darkens from orange to dark red with age, is said to resemble which prized hardwood?

Mahogany is the comparison Julia Morton drew, though she put jackwood's strength at only about three-quarters that of teak and noted it needs sharp tools to work smooth.

Which Filipino street snack wraps strips of saba banana and jackfruit in a spring-roll wrapper before frying?

Turon takes its name from turrón, the Spanish nougat, and the roll is fried until it is crisp and golden brown.

Which string instrument of South Indian Carnatic music has a body traditionally carved from jackfruit wood?

Veena makers carve the body from jackwood, though modern designs may use fibreglass instead. The same timber forms the shell of the mridangam, the main drum of Carnatic music.

The 'heterophyllus' in the jackfruit's scientific name points to which feature that varies between young and old trees?

Leaf shape changes with age: young trees carry three-lobed leaves, mature ones plain ovals. The Latin-style name means variously leaved.

Which smaller Southeast Asian cousin of the jackfruit can be told apart by the stiff brown hairs on its young shoots?

Cempedak also has a thinner rind, so its seeds and pulp can be drawn out together by cutting open the base and pulling on the stalk.

The starchy seeds of the jackfruit are boiled or roasted and eaten in much the same way as which nut?

Chestnuts are the usual comparison: the seeds are sold separately for boiling or roasting, and have even been tinned in tomato sauce like baked beans.

Growers sometimes bag young jackfruits in paper sacks, which are said to attract which insects that guard the fruit?

Ants swarm over the bagged fruit and drive off its enemies, a bonus on top of the shelter the sack gives from pests and diseases.

Jackfruit, known locally as palaa, is the official state fruit of which southern Indian state?

Tamil Nadu lists the fruit among its state symbols under the name palaapalam, and its town of Panruti grows jackfruit alongside cashews.

A syrup made from leftover jackfruit rind and core has been used in the curing of which crop?

Tobacco curing used the syrup, and the same rind waste yields a pectin extract and even a fair jelly.