I love Kathal aka Jackfruit. I always have since I was a kid. Making it was a pain for my mother since raw kathal is sticky, secretes all kinds of juices, is hard to clean and cut and in short makes a mess. And the green outer skin is also deceptive-it is still green when it goes ripe and hence undeclared unusable. But once cut, cleaned and cooked, the end result-oh yum!
My mother's recipe for her signature kathal-do pyaaza had one element I loved. The amount of onions she used! It is called "do pyaaza" for a reason! And then the taste. It is said that cooked jackfruit tastes like meat and is a vegetarian's substitute for the taste. Maybe that's why Ma took the effort of cooking it like one. I still saunter in to the kitchen when it's cooking (my nose is very good at this), become the official taster and help myself to the dish. Having it with rotis for dinner is round two. Round three is gorging on the leftover masala after the meal and reaching the spicy side of food heaven!
Now imagine my shock when after years of living with the food wonder called kathal, I meet people who have never eaten the cooked form but eat it as a fruit, uncooked! It has taken me a while to understand the cultural difference between the north of India and the south of India and one factor in my study has been this. If I were giving an EVS exam in school and had a question, "Differentiate between north Indians and south Indians", I'd have listed this as one of the top 5! We eat is when it is hard, sticky and unripe. We cook it and serve it hot. For people below the Vindhyas, it is served as it is when ripe golden, uniquely sweet and very strongly smelling.
I finally tasted ripe kathal last week in Mumbai. I'd seen it being sold outside the local stations and every time I passed the hawker, I could smell the fruit. It was overpoweringly sweet, almost honey like. So one day I tried one piece. I liked it for a first timer. I am unsure if I'd go out of my way to eat it again sometime but I am sure I am the first one in my family to taste it. After all, ripe kathal is unusable for a north Indian.
My mother's recipe for her signature kathal-do pyaaza had one element I loved. The amount of onions she used! It is called "do pyaaza" for a reason! And then the taste. It is said that cooked jackfruit tastes like meat and is a vegetarian's substitute for the taste. Maybe that's why Ma took the effort of cooking it like one. I still saunter in to the kitchen when it's cooking (my nose is very good at this), become the official taster and help myself to the dish. Having it with rotis for dinner is round two. Round three is gorging on the leftover masala after the meal and reaching the spicy side of food heaven!
Now imagine my shock when after years of living with the food wonder called kathal, I meet people who have never eaten the cooked form but eat it as a fruit, uncooked! It has taken me a while to understand the cultural difference between the north of India and the south of India and one factor in my study has been this. If I were giving an EVS exam in school and had a question, "Differentiate between north Indians and south Indians", I'd have listed this as one of the top 5! We eat is when it is hard, sticky and unripe. We cook it and serve it hot. For people below the Vindhyas, it is served as it is when ripe golden, uniquely sweet and very strongly smelling.
I finally tasted ripe kathal last week in Mumbai. I'd seen it being sold outside the local stations and every time I passed the hawker, I could smell the fruit. It was overpoweringly sweet, almost honey like. So one day I tried one piece. I liked it for a first timer. I am unsure if I'd go out of my way to eat it again sometime but I am sure I am the first one in my family to taste it. After all, ripe kathal is unusable for a north Indian.
