Jackfruit & the Malayali Identity

In Kerala, the jackfruit is an extension of the home. It is an inviolable part of Kerala culture, deeply embedded into its culinary heart. Simi George explores the Malayali and his/her identity through the jackfruit.

Ask my family. Jackfruit, or chakka, as we call it in Kerala, can be cooked in more ways than you can imagine. It can be served as main course, accompaniment, snack and dessert.  

When I think about jackfruit, I think about the summer vacations of my childhood. Every other summer, my family spent a month in Kerala, where my parents were born and raised. There was a jackfruit tree by my father’s ancestral home. He speaks fondly of it, almost as if it were his third child: born in the Trivandrum College of Agriculture, planted in the summer of 1985.  Often, we arrived too late to enjoy jackfruit season. If we were lucky, a late bloomer was still around. My grandmother would lean in and whisper conspiratorially once we had stumbled into the house, heavy suitcases, exhausted from the journey, “Wait and see what I’ve saved for you!”

A jackfruit hanging from a tree. Image credit: Simi George

Jackfruit is the biggest tree fruit in the world; the average fruit weighs 11 kilos. And so, picking a jackfruit requires a good measure of physical strength. Typically, my grandmother would enlist my youngest uncle, the tallest in the family at over 6 feet. He would step into the farm armed with a machete, fell the fruit with a few quick swipes, and deposit the fruit in a verandah attached to the kitchen. This is where culinary activities of the gory variety were performed — gutting fish, dressing chicken, and extracting jackfruit pods, which is a midwifery of sorts.

The women of the family, sitting around a large steel vessel, would cleave the jackfruit into quarters, and coax out its fleshy pods with oiled hands. This is a project best undertaken with company, on a leisurely afternoon. Extracting these pods (encased in what looks like white spandex) takes time, strength and friendly encouragement. When cut, the fruit oozes a sticky gum. Working with rags and banter, my aunts would work quickly, wiping it up before it had the chance to adhere to any surface. There were no sharp looks for those too liberal with putting fruit into their mouths, instead of the vessel. Jackfruits are designed for sharing. By the end of the afternoon, the vessel would be full to the brim. 

A Native South Indian Fruit

The jackfruit is native to south India. It has a long history of cultivation in Kerala and other southern states, and finds mention in ancient Sangam literature. Archaeological findings suggest that jackfruit was cultivated in India 3,000-6,000 years ago.

Jackfruit has traditionally been viewed as a source of affordable sustenance, as it is easy to grow, is resistant to pests and drought, and has a large yield. The average jackfruit tree yields over a hundred fruits a year. Combined with its versatility as a fruit that lends itself to a variety of dishes — sweet and savoury, simple and special occasion — the jackfruit has long been an intrinsic part of Kerala cuisine, and Malayali identity. My father's ancestral home was not unique in having a jackfruit tree on the small farm attached to it. In Kerala, the triumvirate of coconut, jackfruit and mango trees, is an extension of the home. With food processing technologies becoming more accessible, and a growing demand for processed jackfruit snacks beyond India, jackfruit is now becoming an economically significant part of Kerala’s food industry. In recognition of its special status, in 2018, the Kerala government designated jackfruit the official state fruit.

There are several varieties of jackfruit, but in Kerala, they are classified into two categories — varikka and koozha. They are a study in contrast. The flesh of a varikka is firm. Koozha is more fibrous, and soft to the point of being mushy. Koozha remains my personal favourite, but it is the sturdier varikka that has elevated status in Kerala. One variety of varikka, the thenn (honey) varikka is revered for its honeyed sweetness.

The jackfruit is a multiple fruit. Unlike most fruits, it is formed not from a single flower, but from a cluster of flowers. Each flower matures into a pod, hundreds to thousands of which, fuse together to form a single jackfruit. Each seed of a jackfruit is unique, and may yield either a varikka or a koozha. There is an element of mystery to the flowering of a jackfruit tree. Until the fruits appear, there’s no telling if it is a varikka or a koozha. Today, budding and grafting techniques are used to ensure that the desired variety of tree is grown. 

Savoury Jackfruit Dishes

Even if we arrived too late to taste fresh fruit in Kerala, we invariably enjoyed jackfruit in some other form. My grandmother used jackfruit seeds to make a delicious curry. She’d scrape off the skin, slice them into slender pieces, and then cook them in a clay pot with raw mangoes, curry leaves, and coconut milk. She served this exquisitely tangy, creamy curry with steaming rice. Chakkakuru manga curry was a highlight of my childhood vacations.

Chakka is also cooked as a thoran and as a mezhukkupuratti — two classic styles of cooking vegetables in Kerala. In a thoran, the vegetable is cooked with shredded coconut. In a mezhukkupuratti, it is cooked with chopped onions. Both are comforting dishes, served as part of simple home-cooked meals. There is a third preparation, chakka erissery, a special occasion dish served during weddings, and on Onam, Kerala’s celebrated harvest festival. The jackfruit is cooked in a paste of ground coconut, cumin and chili, and the dish is finished with a heavy shower of roasted coconut. 

One of my father’s favourite ways to eat jackfruit is as a puzhukku. Chakka puzhukku is a mash of raw jackfruit, cooked with a spicy coconut paste, and seasoned with a tempering of mustard seeds, curry leaves, and coconut oil. Traditionally, it is served with a fiery fish curry, or pork curry. Texturally, it is similar to mashed potatoes. But it is a far more complex dish, with the heat of green chilis, the sweetness of coconut, and layers of flavour from garlic and curry leaves. It used to be a poor man's meal, the heavy starch content offering nutritious satiety to farmers after a long day in the fields. 

Jackfruit Snacks and Sweets

My maternal aunt often made a batch of chakka varatti in anticipation of our arrival. Much like halwa, it is made with ripe jackfruit puree, jaggery, ghee, and cardamom, cooked down to a glistening mahogany mass. This too, is a labor of love, requiring hours of patient stirring over a low flame. Chakka varatti is delicious on its own, but is also used as a base for many other dishes. Traditionally, it is cooked in an uruli, a large, heavy, round-bottomed, circular vessel, typically made of copper or bronze. They are timeless pieces of cookware, often handed down from generation to generation as cherished family heirlooms.  

Our vacation itinerary was always packed with visits to extended family members, family friends, and old neighbours. These visits weren’t always comfortable for my brother and me. We stood out, with our shaky Malayalam, and blue jeans. Even so, we looked forward to these visits. More houses to visit meant more snacks to eat. On one such visit, we were served a tray of curiously shaped snacks — little conical parcels, wrapped in leaves. I had never encountered anything like it before. My mother’s face lit up in joy. “Kumbilappam!,” she exclaimed. Kumbilappam literally means cone-shaped appam (kumbil means cone in Malayalam). Kumbilappam is made using chakka varatti mixed with shredded coconut, roasted rice flour and cardamom powder. The mixture is shaped into cones, and steamed in edana ela (Indian bay leaves). The leaves do the work of parchment paper, but in a natural, more charming way. They are not merely functional, however; they infuse the appams with their distinctive cinnamon aroa, which is why kumbilappam is also referred to as edana ela appam.

Jackfruit Kumbilappam

Image credit: Blend with Spices

The same ingredients can be reconfigured to make ada. Ada preparation starts with a roasted rice flour dough, which is flattened on a banana leaf. A few spoonfuls of filling are added into the middle, the disc is folded over, its edges pressed to seal, and then it is set to steam, or roast on a pan. A rolling pin is not needed. The dough is simply pressed down using fingers, the indentations still visible when the ada is served. The simplest, and most beloved filling, is a mixture of shredded coconut and jaggery, the centerpiece of many Kerala sweetmeats. It is a special day when chakka varatty is used as a filling.  

Finally, chakka varatty is also used to make chakka pradhaman. Pradhaman is similar to payasam (which is the Malayali equivalent of kheer made in other parts of India), but richer and typically made with ingredients that are cooked separately (bananas, and jackfruit, for instance) before sweeteners and coconut milk are added. Chakka pradhaman is typically served as part of an Onam feast. No pradhaman is complete without a garnish of cashew nuts, raisins, and coconut chips fried in ghee. They add texture and an added layer of flavor.   

We never left Kerala without a few packs of chakka varathathu (jackfruit chips), consolation to carry us through those initial days after vacation. These chips are made with raw jackfruits, sliced, salted and fried in coconut oil. The best chips are made with jackfruit on the verge of ripeness, resulting in an irresistible blend of sweet and savoury notes. They are crunchy, but with more bite than potato chips. I like to think of them as potato chips with spine.

A Long Tradition of Cooking with Jackfruit

All of these jackfruit dishes are traditional recipes. They reflect the creativity and ingenuity of generations past, who made the most of local ingredients.  A handful of ingredients – jackfruit, rice, coconut, jaggery, and cardamom – used to create a variety of sweets and snacks. Paired with coconut, and a few aromatics and spices, jackfruit is transformed into a range of everyday and special-occasion savoury dishes, each distinct in taste and texture. 

The variety of jackfruit dishes in Kerala cuisine also speaks to its versatility. Jackfruit holds appeal both in its ripe and raw forms. It retains texture when cooked, but also lends itself to being mashed, pureed, fried, and preserved.

Traditional jackfruit dishes are primarily associated with the Malayali home kitchen, and rarely, if ever, feature on restaurant menus. They are still largely unknown to those outside Kerala. There is a universe of Malayali cooking beyond appam and aviyal; the jackfruit dishes I describe here offer just a glimmer of that vastness.  

Coming Full Circle

For my family, things have come full circle. My parents retired and moved from Delhi to Kerala. On his small farm, my father planted a chakka tree — a fourth offspring! He is proud of this Vietnam Super Early, a variety that bears fruit in just over a year, and doesn’t grow too big, rendering it unnecessary to enlist a six-footer son for fruit picking. He sends us pictures of the growing tree, and the budding jackfruit. As for me, I am now on the other side of the world. Separated by distance and a pandemic, I scroll through pictures on my iPhone, waiting for the day that I will meet my parents’ cherished Vietnam Super Early.

Banner image credit: HealthierSteps

Simi is an enthusiastic home cook and baker based in San Francisco. She has previously written for The Hindu and Scroll.in and blogs at http://inveterateglutton.blogspot.com/

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