Feel at home with Breadfruit.
Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis)
is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, Moraceae originating in
the South Pacific and that was eventually spread to the rest of Oceania.
British and French navigators introduced a few Polynesian seedless varieties to
Caribbean islands during the late 18th century and today it is grown in some 90
countries throughout South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the
Caribbean, Central America and Africa. Its name is derived from the texture of
the cooked moderately ripe fruit, which has a potato-like flavor, similar to
freshly baked bread.
Ancestors of the Polynesians
found the trees growing in the northwest New Guinea area around 3,500 years
ago. They gave up the rice cultivation they had brought with them from Taiwan,
and raised breadfruit wherever they went in the Pacific (except Easter Island
and New Zealand, which are too cold). Their ancient eastern Indonesian cousins
spread the plant west and north through insular and coastal Southeast Asia. It
has, in historical times, also been widely planted in tropical regions
elsewhere.
Breadfruit trees grow to a height
of 25 m (82 ft). The large and thick leaves are deeply cut into pinnate lobes.
All parts of the tree yieldlatex, a milky juice, which is useful for boat
caulking.
The trees are monoecious, with
male and female flowers growing on the same tree. The male flowers emerge
first, followed shortly afterward by the female flowers, which grow into
capitula, which are capable of pollination just three days later. The compound,
false fruit develops from the swollen perianth, and originates from 1,500-2,000
flowers. These are visible on the skin of the fruit as hexagon-like disks.
Breadfruit is one of the
highest-yielding food plants, with a single tree producing up to 200 or more
grapefruit-sized fruits per season, and only requires very limited care. In the
South Pacific, the trees yield 50 to 150 fruits per year. In southern India,
normal production is 150 to 200 fruits annually. Productivity varies between
wet and dry areas. In the Caribbean, a conservative estimate is 25 fruits per
tree. Studies in Barbados indicate a reasonable potential of 16 to 32 tons per
hectare (6.7-13.4 tons/acre). The ovoid fruit has a rough surface, and each
fruit is divided into manyachenes, each achene surrounded by a fleshy perianth
and growing on a fleshy receptacle. Most selectively bred cultivars have
seedless fruit.
The breadfruit is closely related
to the breadnut, from which it might have been selected, and to the jackfruit.
Uses
Breadfruit is a staple food in
many tropical regions. The trees were first propagated far outside their native
range by Polynesian voyagers who transported root cuttings and air-layered
plants over long ocean distances. Breadfruit are very rich in starch, and
before being eaten, they are roasted, baked, fried or boiled. When cooked, the
taste of moderately ripe breadfruit is described as potato-like, or similar to
freshly baked bread. Very ripe breadfruit becomes sweet, as the starch converts
to sugar.
The fruit of the breadfruit tree
- whole, sliced lengthwise and in cross-section
Because breadfruit trees usually
produce large crops at certain times of the year, preservation of the harvested
fruit is an issue. One traditional preservation technique is to bury peeled and
washed fruits in a leaf-lined pit where they ferment over several weeks and
produce a sour, sticky paste. So stored, the product may last a year or more, and
some pits are reported to have produced edible contents more than 20 years
later. Fermented breadfruit mash goes by many names such as mahr, ma, masi,
furo, and bwiru, among others.
Most breadfruit varieties also
produce a small number of fruits throughout the year, so fresh breadfruit is
always available, but somewhat rare when not in season.
Breadfruit can be eaten once
cooked, or can be further processed into a variety of other foods. A common
product is a mixture of cooked or fermented breadfruit mash mixed with coconut
milk and baked in banana leaves. Whole fruits can be cooked in an open fire,
then cored and filled with other foods, such as coconut milk, sugar and butter,
cooked meats, or other fruits. The filled fruit can be further cooked so the
flavor of the filling permeates the flesh of the breadfruit.
The Hawaiian staple food called
poi, made of mashed taro root, is easily substituted for, or augmented with,
mashed breadfruit. The resulting "breadfruit poi" is called poi ʻulu.
In Puerto Rico, breadfruit is called panapen or pana, for short and in some
in-land regions it's also called mapén.Pana is often served boiled with a
mixture of sauteed bacalao (salted cod fish), olive oil and onions. It is also
served as tostones or mofongo. In the Dominican Republic, it is known by the
name buen pan or "good bread". Breadfruit is also found in Indonesia
and Malaysia, where it is called sukun. In the South Indian state of Kerala and
coastalKarnataka, especially on the sides of Mangalore, where it is widely
grown and cooked, it is known as kada chakka or seema chakka and deegujje,
respectively. In Belize, the Mayan people call it masapan.
A polished basalt breadfruit
pounder used by the Tahitian people of French Polynesia. From the Honolulu
Academy of Arts collection.
Breadfruit is roughly 25%
carbohydrates and 70% water. It has an average amount of vitamin C (20 mg/100
g), small amounts of minerals (potassium and zinc) and thiamin(100 μg/100 g).
Breadfruit was widely and diversely used among
Pacific Islanders. Its lightweight wood (specific gravity of 0.27) is resistant
to termites and shipworms, so is used as timber for structures and outrigger
canoes. Its wood pulp can also be used to make paper, called breadfruit tapa.
It is also used in traditional medicine to treat illnesses that range from sore
eyes to sciatica. Native Hawaiians used its sticky latex to trap birds, whose
feathers were made into cloaks.
In a 2012 research study
published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, scientists at the
Agricultural Research Service (ARS), a division of the USDA, and collaborators
at the University of British Columbia in Okanagan, Canada, "identified
three breadfruit compounds — capric, undecanoic and lauric acids — that act as
insect repellents." These saturated fatty acids were "found to be
significantly more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET.
Text courtesy: Wikipedia
Photo by: Ramesh Menon, Abu Dhabi
