When the jackfruit makes an appearance, it is always in grand style and in huge groups! We have a very tall tree on the farm and the jackfruit always appears in clumps - it is a wonder how even in that seemingly crowded space they manage to grow so large! And then sometimes there is a loner- one solitary fruit hanging majestically away from the rest on a dangerously slender branch.
I had my eye on that one and watched it grow to a humongous
size. This year I planned to get back to
some of my much loved Sun-drying activities!
There is immense pleasure in letting the sun take charge of the
processing and apart from the early morning rush to get the things out on the
terrace to get the maximum sunlight, the rest of the day is relatively freed up
for all the other work.
I reminded my farm hand almost everyday to check whether it
was ready for harvest. An over-ripe
jackfruit turns to a black mush in the heat of the sun. An under ripe one becomes hard and quite
inedible. So it has to be just
right. How are you going to get it down?
Should I call some one? Will you do it
when the coconut tree climber is here?
All my questions were answered with a vigorous head
nod. (I still have not been able to
decode the direction and frequency of the head nod. )
I almost gave up,
well not quite. Can you loop a rope
around it and lower it down? I think that sounded quite ridiculous to my own
ears.
Finally a few days later, the jackfruit made its appearance
on the front porch followed by the announcement “Halsinhannu!” that is Jackfruit in Kannada.
It had burst open a bit, but for its size and weight of
amost 20 kgs, the damage was minimal.
Out came the steel plates.
The Steel tables are double wiped and placed on the terrace.
And the jackfruit is sliced open.
Plate after plate is laden with the deseeded portions
and placed on the steel tables in the brilliant sunshine.
The next few days there is a steady harvest…and a continuous
cycle of activity fresh-need to be
deseeded-and arranged, semi-dried-need-to-be-turned-over and the fully-dried-need-to-be-stored-away!
Then there is the vacuum packing process- the only way to
store this delicacy without chemical preservatives – no the airtight bottles do
not prevent moisture and mold from getting in and and I
learnt this the hard way.
So that is how summer months turn out to be the busiest! And I haven’t even begun on the bananas
which are waiting to be harvested!
