AKEE or ACKEE or ACHEE

Excerpted from p. 15 Akee - sometimes spelled Ackee or Chee, and also known as Vegetable Brains or, in Spanish, seso vegetal - is one of the most extraordinary of all the vegetables of the world. The edible part is the mature fat yellowish-white inch-long aril, creased like a tiny brain, each one set next to handsome ebony seeds in a large vivid scarlet fruit. These fruits hang all over the beautiful glossy-leaved big trees, like Christmas ornaments, and in their season open into three parts, to expose seeds and arils.

The tree, an indigene of Guinea and adjacent parts of West Africa, is known by botanists as Blighia sapida of the Soapberry Family). The generic epithet was bestowed to honor Captain William Bligh, infamous for this part in the mutiny on HMS Bounty.

The arils of the Akee fruit, firm, and rather oily, and variously compared with cooked brains or scrambled eggs, are occasionally eaten raw, but more often are prepared in the varied appetizing styles popular in Jamaica.

This resource is an excellent source of information over a wide range of vegetables. It includes drawings and recipes.

The fruit turns red on reaching maturity and splits open with continued exposure to the sun. Traditionally it is at this time that the ackees are harvested and the arilli removed and cleaned in preparation for cooking. This delicacy is enjoyed by many at breakfast or as an entree. The canned product is exported to ethnic markets worldwide and continues to be enjoyed by both visitors to the island and Jamaicans residing overseas.

Consumers of the unripe fruit sometimes suffer from 'Jamaican vomiting sickness syndrome' (JVS) allegedly caused by the unusual amino acid components, hypoglycin A and B. In this regard it is recognised that the nutritional status of the consumer is important since diagnosed patients generally show manifestations of chronic malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. Although JVS has resulted in some fatalities in the past with symptoms including vomiting and severe hypoglcaemia, nowadays such incidences are rare with the increased awareness of the necessity for consuming only ripe, opened ackees.

Levels of hypoglycin A in the ackee arilli peak at maturity but rapidly diminish to non-detectable levels in the opened fruit making it safe for consumption.

Recent studies [1] done in the Biochemistry Department at UWI, Mona on the fatty acid composition of the arilli from ackee have found that 51-58% of the arillus dry weight consists of lipids. Linoleic, palmitic and stearic acids were the major fatty acids observed with linoleic accounting for over 55% of the total fatty acids. These results show that the purified oil from ackee has high nutritive value and makes an important contribution to the fatty acid intake of many Jamaicans.

According to CFNI's "Food Composition Tables for the English-speaking Caribbean" (1998) the contents of a 100g serving of "Ackee, canned, drained" are as follows: Water (76.7 g), Energy (625 kJ or 151 kcal), Protein (2.9 g), Fat (15.2 g), Saturated fat (0 g) Cholesterol (0 mg), Total carbohydrate (0.8 g), Dietary fibre (2.7 g), Calcium (35 mg), Iron (0.7 mg), Potassium (270 mg), Sodium (240 mg), Zinc (1 mg), vit A -, thiamin (0.03 mg), riboflavin (0.07 mg), niacin (1.1 mg), total folacin (41 microgram), vit C (30 mg).

An IR spectrum of ackee oil is available in JCAMP-DX file format.

Excerpts from Bender, Arnold E. 1990. Dictionary of Nutrition and Food Technology. Butterworths, Boston.