You don't know jack about Booker

As Democrats step forward stating their interest in the presidency, we are beginning to know more about them.  Like how Cory Booker is a vegan.  A vegan; not a vegetarian. I had no idea!

Booker, who became a vegetarian in the 1990s and a vegan in 2014, has said his last nonvegan meal was on Election Day that year.

How about that!

Perhaps because I read that news, or who knows why, Pocket recommended a news story about my favorite fruit/vegetable from the old county--Jackfruit.

A post about this fruit is one of the oldest in my blog, in its second version.  As I wrote then:

Back in India, my mother cooks the young, unripe jack fruit--before it develops into its huge size--in a couple of different ways.  One of my favorite dishes.  Am drooling when I think of it.
I think it is one of those dishes that is fast disappearing from the urban kitchens.  Unfortunately.

Which brings me back to the news story that Pocket recommended. It is about jackfruit.  Thousands of miles away from the home of the fruit--Kerala--"in food trucks in Los Angeles, vegan eateries in London – and now even at Pizza Hut– jackfruit consumption is surging among diners looking for an ethical alternative to meat."

Who woulda thunk that!

As kids, we learnt from others--who perhaps had tasted beef and pork--that the green jack dish tastes like meat.  Like shredded or pulled beef or pork.  But, to think that now this is going global, far, far away from the "god's own country" from where the name "chakka" became "jack."  It is a fascinating world in which we live.

From a starting point of virtually zero, jackfruit exports, including to the US, Europe and Britain, grew to 500 tonnes last year, and could reach 800 tonnes by the end of 2019, according to Kerala’s agriculture minister, VS Sunil Kumar.
“The vegan trend in western countries will help [jackfruit farmers] tap a booming global market,” he said.

I wonder if Cory Booker has tasted the traditional idichakka thuvaran.  Maybe Malayali Indian-Americans ought to serve him that at a fundraiser. 

I am already looking forward to a lunch with idichakka thuvaran ;)