And now back to my story.
I happened down the Asian foods aisle and remembered that I forgot that I wanted coconut milk. As I was reaching for the can of coconut milk, my eyes wandered to the right and what did I see? Pocky sticks! Right there on the shelf of my regular market! I added a box to my basket, excited to cross one more thing off of my list of foods to try, and thought I might as well see what other treasures were to be found in the Asian foods aisle. I spotted jackfruit, which reminded me that I had breadfruit on my list. No such luck. So I thought, "Well, I've never had jackfruit, either! New one to add to the list!" And I grabbed a jar.
No, it is not cheating.
Pocky Sticks
The first to be sampled were the Pocky sticks. I was starving, since I'd only had two fruit smoothies and some coffee all day. A small box has 210 calories, so I reminded myself that no matter how dainty they were, 210 calories was 210 calories, and resolved to eat less than half the box.
They are very slender, and about 7" long or so. About 2/3 of each cookie stick is covered in a thick layer of chocolate. The taste reminds me of those Petit Écolier cookies, which are kind of like thin shortbread with chocolate on one side. (I guess there are strawberry pocky sticks, too, but I didn't see them.) Yum!
Verdict: Yum! A good cookie treat!
On to the tropical portion of our evening...
Jackfruit
After dinner, I decided to have the jackfruit for dessert. I opened the jar and sniffed. After my gefilte fish experience, I was feeling a little more cautious about what is to be found inside of jars. It smelled sweet, and I was surprised to see that it looked like sheets curled in on itself. From the outside appearance I expected big slices, like papaya. It is golden colored, almost the color of a peach, and the shape is almost like a larger, thinner-fleshed lychee. In fact, the flavor of the jarred jackfruit was quite like a cross between canned peaches and canned lychee. Quite good. I imagine that fresh jackfruit tastes very different than the jarred variety, just as fresh peaches and lychee taste very different than canned.
Here is a video that shows what the inside of a fresh jackfruit looks like and how to eat it. I'm including a picture of the jar of jackfruit, as well as what it looks like fresh. They are actually very large, but the insides come apart in pieces (see in the video).
It seems to be even more common in cans than jars.
Chose a photo with a person holding a jackfruit so you could see the size!
Verdict: Tasty! I would buy it again just for the heck of it (though I don't usually buy canned fruit other than pineapple), and maybe someday I'll have the chance to taste it fresh.
Note - Thank you to the following sites for these images: 2.bp.blogspot.com, pacificisles.com, proscitech.com.au
