Better Breakfasts and Jackfruit Economics

Jackfruit can be intimidating, and not only because of its weight. Peeling a jackfruit is a significant chore, but the results are worthwhile, and I have documented them numerous times on this blog.

Half-way

Steelcut oats, whith shredded apple, blueberries, cacao nibs, cinnamon and some raisings, goji berries, and topped with some Jackfruit.

Ready to eat

Today, I want to pay attention to the economics of the Jackfruit.

Jackfruit is apparently the national fruit of Bangladesh, so during the seaason, you will find them everywhere in my heavily Bangladeshi neighborhood.

• This year jackfruit could be found in my area between $0.99/lb (rarely), but I got one 20lb jackfruit with a blemish for that price, and it worked out well. Only one flowerpod was affected by some rot, but overall the fruit was perfectly healthy and ripe to eat.
• Some of the stores will peal them and sell you the flower pods, ready to eat, ant that tended to go for $5/lb.
• You will find the nuts, the kernels at $9/lb or there abouts

I buy the whole fruit and I make a curry with the kernels, which is out of this world. I have publishedt that on this blog.

Being single, I make this a project to peel the fruit, which takes me several hours, but then I freeze the flower pods in quart bags, and I use it on my typical oatmeal breakfast. 

With the kernels I make a big pot of curry, and some of it I eat that week and the rest is frozen in quart bags for future use. This way, I can whip up rice with curry and have some kind of veggie on the side and I have an excellent meal in short order.

My 20lb Jackfruit yielded 7/8 quart bags of flowerpods, and 2-3 lbs of seeds. Obviously, if you have the traffic, it could be worthwhile to sell some ready to eat jackfruit.

Before I knew what to do with them, I'd give the seeds to my Bangladeshi neighbors. But now that I know what to do with them, they are actually a true delicacy in the right recipe.