Jack of all fruits

My pregnancy craving for jackfruit was so intense that it made me wind up our stay in Frankfurt and return to Thiruvananthapuram for good. My daughter is two and a half years old now. But my craving for jackfruit has not found its complete solace. My love for idi-chakka (small jackfruit) and its thoran dates back to my college days when I first got a taste of it and couldn’t believe it was made out of jackfruit.  

Another variety of chakka (Sheema Chakka or Kaithachakka as known locally) makes the best mizhukkupirattis or thorans and I can keep eating them forever if they are cooked in the right consistencies. From the raw jackfruits, getting a varikka variety has now become like a lottery and it has been many years since I could taste it. Memories of abundant varikka jackfruits in the backyard and their pungent aroma still haunt me to this day.  

There is another variety of jackfruit which is known locally as Ayani Chakka which is small, round and has small globules of flesh draped around white spherical seeds. I have been hunting for this one since ages and even when I am ready to buy it for any price, I am not lucky enough to find one anywhere.

In my childhood, when houses had lavish yards around them with plenty of variety of trees canopying and bearing fruits in abundance, this era of yearning for a jackfruit was unthinkable.

Back then ripe jackfruits were considered a nuisance for the flies they attract as they splat open onto the ground and many a time jack fruits were given away for free to avoid the mess. And today when trees have got replaced by concrete, a few souls like me still loiter around to quench that longing of old taste buds.  

(The writer is a poet, mother of two kids, techie and foodie)