Malayalees ‘angry’ after Guardian article pokes fun at Kerala’s jackfruit

By A Staff Reporter

LONDON March 31: A Guardian article that poked fun at Kerala’s jackfruit has ignited a debate within the Kerala community all over the world and took to social media to vent their ire.

The article titled “Jackfruit is a vegan sensation – could I make it taste delicious at home?“, by Zoe Williams, poked fun at the fruit by naming and shaming it. The writer calls it “ugly, smelly and a pest-plant” and goes onto say that “people ate it, but only if they had nothing better to eat”.

However, the article confirms that although its not tasty it has cornered the vegan market and then the world which the writer doesn’t delve too much on but goes onto describe the not so good factors about the fruit.

The writer uses to describe jackfruit as “gross-looking lump of fibre – fat spiky and green and that it would fit in the animated film Monsters Inc”.

However, people all over the world who had tasted jackfruit took to social media and on the comments section to share their views and also disagree with the article as a whole.

The article summed up with the sentence “Think of jackfruit as a triffid: they don’t even talk about farming it. It merely is, everywhere.”. To this a reader responded as below:

“You guys just discovering it? It grew prodigiously in my backyard in Caribbean. Likewise avocado (when did that become posh?) , it falls off the trees and rot back in the Caribbean. Boy growing up – now I realised how lucky I was. Jack fruit, bananas, oranges, mangoes, avocados etc. all in my backyard. Never paid a cent for one – until I get to London LOL”.