WILLIAMNAGAR, JULY 12: The first ever two days “Jackfruit Festival” held in Williamnagar, East Garo hills district headquarter, showed the potential of how this particular fruit which was wasted in huge numbers every year can be a real source of income for the people even as huge crowds thronged the venue of the festival to watch the “Biggest Jackfruit” competition and “Jackfruit Eating” competition.
People started to converge from early Friday morning to witness both the competitions. Collin Marak from Upper Rongjeng won the “Biggest Jackfruit” competition as his jackfruit weigh 29.00 kgs. Starlin Marak jackfruit weighed 26.7 kgs and he was declared the runner-up.
The world record for biggest jackfruit is 34.4 kgs set by a farmer from Hawai. East Garo hills deputy commissioner Vijay Mantri felt that looking at the potential next year Garo Hills can easily beat that record.
Ninety big jackfruits were brought from all over Garo Hills to the festival for the competition.
For the “Jackfruit Eating” competition Martina Marak emerged as a winner as she ate 54 fruits in 2 minutes, with Elitha N Sangma following closely as the runner up as she who ate 47 fruits in 2 minutes in the female category From the male category Gamseng Marak who ate 49 fruits in one minute was declared the winner while Dildin Marak who ate 41 fruits in the same time emerged as the runner up.
Sixty one female and 164 male participated in the competition.
That is not enough the festival also saw Jackfruit Cooking competition wherein the competitors were required to cook jackfruit based food. The competitors cooked in the presence of the spectators to compete. Apart from competitions there was also a workshop on jackfruit based products
Home Science College from Tura, Bethany Society from Tura, Mendhipathar Mutli purpose Cooperative Society from Mendhipathar, Sangma Bakery from Willimanagar, Marak Bakery from Williamanagar, Romgpi Food Paradise from Williamnagar, DCIC of East Garo Hills, MRDS of East Garo Hills and 12 Self Help Groups displayed various value added Jackfruit based products in 20 stalls.
The products include Jackfruit Cakes, Jackfruit Muffins, Jackfruit Chips, Jackfruit Biscuits, Jackfruit Bread, Jackfruit Chocolates, Jackfruit Pickles, Jackfruit wine, Jackfruit Juice and Jackfruit Jam.
Tura Polyt
echnic made a power point presentation on preparation of Jackfruit wine, chips, juice and jam. Samanda SHG demonstrated the preparation of Jackfruit Chutney. Tura Home Science College demonstrated preparation of “Jackfruit Puri” and “Jackfruit Chips”.
According to Mantri the first ever “Jackfruit Festival” concluded successfully. Many people expressed their wish to see many more such festivals in future.- By Our Reporter
such a unique competion it was the whole world rejoiced by wht u r doing…..cheer up!!!!!!!!!!.!!
This is really interesting. I ‘m A Development journalist from Karnataka & editor of a leading Farm magazine run by farmers. We have been publishing hundreds of positive articles on jackfruit utlisation and value addition since 6 years. Not only from India, but stories from Malaysia, Vietnam, Srilanka, Philippines etc. We have brought out 11 Jackfruit Special issues so far.
We are interested to interact with Jackfruit activists of Meghalaya, Those bakeries & other organisations that prepared Jackfruit value added products etc. We can share lot of information too.(Our contact :espadre@gmail.com)
– Shree Padre