Other Jamaican Firsts

As far as weekends go, it was an exciting one. On Saturday we were invited up to one of my communities for a relaxing hanging out afternoon and dinner. While there we had several firsts for Jamaican food. The first was jackfruit. How to explain jackfruit? First, it is about the size of a small watermelon with a rough, bumpy skin which resembles, other Jamaican fruit that you have never seen in America. Once cut open, the inside looks like a breadfruit with some seed pods. For those that have never seen breadfruit, I'm not really sure how to explain it. On the jackfruit, you pick out seedpods that resemble an artichoke heart but taste like...a jackfruit. It is sweet and very delicious. This description isn't very good because it is like no fruit I have had before.

Then, for dinner we had chicken foot soup. I had seen it but never eaten it. The soup is delicious, but I wasn't sure what to do with the chicken feet, so I decided to just put it in my mouth and suck the broth off of it. To my surprise I did that and spit out bones. The skin and connective tissue really just melts off. Not a lot of flavor. I had no problem eating all of the chicken feet in the soup and it is a wonderful soup, but when I got the curried chicken foot it got set aside for the dog. Just too much foot.