Ya know Juicyfruit gum? I just found out that gum is actually flavored after a real fruit (albeit artificially). It is Jackfruit flavored gum.
How the hell do I get a Jackfruit without travelling to the South Pacific? I love that flavor. I’d like to try it at least once in my life.
Someone else watch The Food Hunter this morning.
Yep!
(though that guy’s a bit too excited about produce, he kind of scares me.)
You can get it in a can, although I have no idea how this would taste.
Maybe look for the breadfruit - something quite similar to the jackfruit.
I didn’t know just how big these guys are! Some can grow to up to 75 pounds, quite possibly the largest fruits grown on trees in the world.
Well I’ve had jackfruit and I would have never made the connection.
Not my favorite wonderful Asian fruit.
Jackfruit is often pickled, let that be a hint to you.
Or, let me put it this way;
Jackfruit is related to Juicy Fruit
as
Grenadine is related to Pommegranites.
Yeah, that’s about right.
Grenadine is supposed to be pommegranite-flavored?!
Fresh, ripe jackfruit is delicious. It’s sweet, with a slightly grainy texture. It’s been so long since I had Juicyfruit gum, though, that I don’t really remember the taste of the stuff. So I can’t compare it to the jackfruits I’ve eaten.
Fresh, green jackfruit is more like a veggie. You have to really cook the stuff to make it taste at all edible.
I’ve never been to the South Pacific, but I know you can sometimes find jackfruit (usually green jackfruit, sometimes ripe jackfruit) in some Asian grocery stores with a huge clientele and a lot of turnover of the produce.
I had jackfruit in Brazil. Jackfruit trees grow really well in the northeastern part of the country. Sometimes you’ll see them as ornamentals. The fruits get really huge, though, and they’re hard and spiky on the outside. I was always slightly afraid that one was going to fall on my head.
Actually–if you’re a serious foodie, and you like exotic fruits, Brazil would be a really good place to take a vacation. There’s jackfruit, acai, fruta de conde, sapoti…but I digress.
You don’t need to go all the way to Brazil. I’ve had jackfruit grown in Florida at the Fruit & Spice Park outside of Homestead.
Jackfruit is apparently pretty rare in the U.S., though. According to this page
Yummy!
Every time we go to Brazil, my wife indulges in her favorite fruit in the world: pinha (a.k.a fruta de conde).
Here she is enjoying one, with a whole box at the ready.
Just felt I’d share that. Not much more about the Jackfruit-Juicyfruit connection except to say that my faded memories of each seem to match. Cool!
Next time we go, I will bring along a pack of Juicyfruit gum and do a taste test.
Jackfruit certainly do look scary on the tree. Effin’ huge things with bumps all over them that would definitely leave a lasting impression.
[Hijack] Hey–just out of curiosity, minor7flat5, how is it that you get to go to Brazil often enough that you can even use the phrase, “Every time we go to Brazil”? I’d love to find some way to spend time there on a regular basis. [/Hijack]
Oooh I love jackfruit. I don’t think it’s anything at all like breadfruit (which I also like). I had it in the Seychelles. We went for a hike in the jungle of my grandparents’ property and found some wild.
They’re huge. Yellow inside, and very sticky. Sweet. Very yummy. I think the taste is like a mixture of pineapple and banana.
Awww… I want one now!
That’s easy – marry a Brazilian 
Not to mention Acerola, Graviola, Jabuti, Pitanga, Maracuja, Bacuri, Copuacu, Goiaba, Caju, Mamao, Manga, and Pitanga! Northern and Notheastern Brazil are truly heaven for anyone who loves fruit.
I can heartily recommend this method also. 
And here in Europe it’s damn expensive. I saw some at a market here in Holland (actually it was a quarter of a Jackfruit). Because I love Jackfruit, I asked how much it would cost, and it was 35 Euros (that’s about 40 dollars)! Considering my mother-in-law has them growing in her backyard, I decided not to buy any.
Indeed, grenadine is supposed to imitate pommegranite juice.
Those Brazilian fruits were making my mouth water, they look wonderous and yummy.
Makes me want to go there and eat lots of fruit.
I spent 2 months in South America a few years back and didn’t see anything like these, but I didn’t get to Brazil, which I kind of regret now
When I was in Brasil my favorite fruit juice was açai. It tastes sort of like chocolate Malt-O-Meal mixed with kiwi. It’s hard to describe. I know it sounds like some sort of strange fantasy but it’s true!
I LOOOOOOOVE acai. (I can’t make the cedilla under the c or the accent on the i.)
I don’t think acai really tastes like kiwi at all. Well, an acai na tigela or suco de acai might taste like that if you had it blended with a fruit that tasted like kiwi. But the taste of acai itself isn’t really like anything else I’ve had. It’s every bit as distinct–and yummy–as the tastes of chocolate, or cola, or coffee. I wish there were a good source of the stuff in the US, but there isn’t. In the San Francisco Bay Area, you can get these kinda pricey bottled juices with acai, but the acai taste is almost completely overwhelmed by the other stuff in the juice.
However–I found out that you can bring back frozen acai packets by putting them in your checked luggage (double-bag them in good freezer ziplock bags first). I’ve got some acai pulp sitting in my freezer. I haven’t used it yet, so I don’t know if it still tastes good after having been thawed and refrozen a couple of times. I would guess, though, that it’s OK.
It’s so difficult to find the words to describe fruits that don’t taste like any fruits you’ve ever had before! Or to describe a fruit that tastes like five different fruits rolled into one but yet at the same time not like any of the ones you’re comparing it to.
When I came back from Brasil I found that Goya had a guarana juice (I was always drinking guarana sodas because of course the Antarctica soda is everywhere), but the Goya guarana juice is awful. It’s bitter and tastes like the fruit was perhaps unripened before it was canned. I found the acai drink here in the US too, but you’re right, with all the extra additives you have to ask, why bother?
Jackfruit is a common flavour of milkshake at most Vietnamese restaurants. The easiest and best way to taste it would be to go to a place that serves a mean bowl of pho.