Breadfruit

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Breadfruit
Breadfruit cultivated on Hawai'i Island
Breadfruit cultivated on Hawai'i Island
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Rosales
Family: Moraceae
Genus: Artocarpus
Species: A. altilis
Binomial name
Artocarpus altilis
(Parkinson) Fosberg

The Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a tree and fruit native to the Malay Peninsula and western Pacific islands. It has also been widely planted in tropical regions elsewhere. It was collected and distributed by Lieutenant William Bligh as one of the botanical samples collected by HMS Bounty in the late 18th century, on a quest for a cheap high-energy food source for British slaves in the West Indies.

Contents

[edit] Description

Breadfruit trees grow to a height of 20 m. The large and thick leaves are deeply cut into pinnate lobes. All parts of the tree yield latex, a milky juice. This latex is used for boat caulking.

Breadfruit tree planted in Honolulu, Hawaii
Breadfruit tree planted in Honolulu, Hawaii

The trees are monoecious, with male and female flowers growing on the same tree. The male flowers emerge first, followed shortly afterwards by the female flowers, growing into a capitulum. These can be pollinated three days later. The pollinators are Old World fruit bats (Family Pteropodidae). 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.

It is one of the highest-yielding food plants, a single tree producing up to 200 or more fruits per season. 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 West Indies, a conservative estimate is 25 fruits per tree. Studies in Barbados indicate a reasonable potential of 6.7 to 13.4 tons per acre (16-32 tons/ha). Much higher yields have been forecasted, but experts are skeptical and view these as unrealistic. The grapefruit-sized ovoid fruit have a rough surface, and each fruit is divided into many achenes, each achene surrounded by a fleshy perianth and growing on a fleshy receptacle. Some selectively-bred cultivars have seedless fruit.

[edit] Uses

Sections of the Bread fruit - from Bligh's 1792 account of the mutinous A Voyage to the South Sea
Sections of the Bread fruit - from Bligh's 1792 account of the mutinous A Voyage to the South Sea

Breadfruit is a staple food in many tropical regions. They were propagated far outside their native range by Polynesian voyagers who transported root cuttings and air-layered plants over long ocean distances. They are very rich in starch, and before being eaten they are roasted, baked, fried, or boiled. When cooked the taste is described as potato-like, or similar to fresh baked bread (hence the name).

Because breadfruit trees usually produce large crops at certain times of the year, preservation 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 30 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 that 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 or augmented with mashed breadfruit. The resulting “breadfruit poi” is called poi ‘ulu.

Breadfruit contains 25% carbohydrates (110kcal/100g). It has small amounts of minerals (potassium and zinc) and vitamins B1 (100μg) and C (20mg/100g).

[edit] Other Names

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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