Storia do Mogor 265.22.3

265.22.3

The jack-fruit I spoke of is of three kinds—barca, papa, and pacheri jack-fruit. These fruits are very large; some weigh eighty pounds or thereabouts. The tree is of the size of a walnut-tree. The fruit referred to grows on the trunk and on the larger branches; some grow from the roots, and these are discovered by the earth being pushed up, also by the smell which the spot emits. This fruit has a green rind an inch in thickness with projections in the nature of thorns. It is known to be ripe by the smell it emits. Inside it is full of seeds, somewhat about the size of pears; these are very sweet, and on opening them, a juice issues sweet as honey, and in the middle are stones like the chestnuts of Europe. In these jack-fruit the seeds are sometimes white and sometimes red; some are hard, some are soft, and each variety has its special flavour. Of these seeds mixed with rice-flour they make a kind of fritters, which in India are called paniara. These, too, have their own flavour. When this fruit (the jack) is cut, a white liquid like bird-lime oozes from the rind, and sticking to the hand, it cannot be removed till it is anointed with oil. I will tell you a story of what I saw in the Carmelite convent.