: For city residents who love all things jackfruit, the Sooryakanthi exhibition ground at Kanakakkunnu is the place to head to.
The Ananthapuri Chakka Mahotsavam, organised by the Jackfruit Promotion Consortium, Santhigram, and the Centre for Innovation in Science and Social Action (CISSA), got under way here on Friday.
The exhibition is aimed at popularising jackfruit, its benefits, and value-added products.
Near the entrance is a CISSA stall that has books on jackfruit and a host of environment-related issues. Posters on benefits of jackfruit, cooking have been put up here.
Further up, there is a demonstration of various types of jackfruit trees such as Nattuchembarathi, Malaysian honey, Sindhooram Varikka, Panchara Varikka, seedless, and Chembatach.
There are stalls selling value-added products of jackfruit such as ready-to-drink juice, cookies, squash, health mix, halwa, chips, and jackfruit seed masala. Another stall claims to sell nearly 30 products of jackfruit. These include squashes and pickles made from tender jackfruit, chips, ‘murukku,’ ‘avalose podi,’ halwa, ‘chammanthi podi,’ ‘chakka varatti,’ and ‘puttu podi.’ Steam and dried jackfruit, which is claimed to become fresh-like when dipped in water, thereby retaining its nutritive value, is also available here.
There are stalls selling jackfruit saplings, such as those of Malaysian honey, ‘then varikka,’ ‘Dang surya,’ ‘Chembaratthi varikka,’ and ‘Kullan varikka.’ The prices range from Rs.200 to Rs.9,000 for the Chembatach variety.
To satisfy the taste buds, head for a stall that sells 51 dishes all made from jackfruit. The dishes here include jackfruit masala dosa, sambhar, unniyappam, payasam, ada, modakam, vada, mixture, jam, aviyal, thoran, and biryani, to name a few.
If one wishes to take home a jackfruit, that too is possible at the expo.
Besides jackfruit, other products too are on display here. These include furniture, clothes, bags and purses, jewellery, footwear, CDs, medicinal oils, household products, coolers, and so on. There is also a stall where seeds of various plants can be bought.
