BREADFRUIT, ARTOCARPUS COMMUNIS

Excerpts from Passmore, Jacki. 1991. The Encyclopedia of Asian Food and Cooking. Hearst Books, New York.

Breadfruit has a knobby green skin separated into five-sided segments. The fibrous starchy flesh tastes like yam or potato when cooked. Breadfruit is not widely eaten in Asia but is available in Indonesia and the Philippines. It should be green and hard when cooked as a roasted vegetable and yellow-brown and soft when used for desserts. Cut the breadfruit in half, scoop otu the white pulpy flesh and remove the seeds. Boil the flesh and use in place of potato or add sugar, spices and coconut milk and serve as a dessert. The seeds may be roasted like chestnuts.

This resource is much more than a dictionary or encyclopedia. If you wish to know more about cuisines and associated recipes from individual countries, this would be an excellent resource.

Kittler, Pamela Goyan and Kathryn Pl. Sucher. 2000. Cultural Foods. Wadsworth Thomason Publishing.

is large round tropical fruit with warty green skin and starchy white flesh. It must be cooked and is usually served as a vegetable.

Garrett, Theodore Francis (edited by). 1898. the Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery. L. Upcott Gill, 170, Strand, W.C. London. Vol. I

is from a tree from which this natural bread grows (Artocarpus incisa) is a native of Southern Asia, of the islands of the South Pacific, and of the Indian Archipelago, where it is very highly esteemed. The fruits is nearly spherical in shape, and is covered with a rough rind, which is marked with small irregular hexagonal divisions, having each a small prominence in the middle. A single fruit sometimes weighs 4 lb or more, and contains a large proportion of starch, which forms an excellent food; it is not much known in this country. The pulp is sweet, juicy, and yellow when it is fully ripe, but it is in a better condition for cooking before reaching maturity. When it is gathered before ripening and is baked, the pulp is white and mealy, resembling wheat bread.

Excerpts from Hawkes, Alex D. 1968. A World of Vegetable Cookery. Simon and Schuster, New York.

The Breadfuit (Artocarpus communis) is a part of the daily diet of millions of people in such regions of the world as Polynesia, Micronesia, Jamaica, Brazil, where this nutritious fruit is used in a variety of fashions as a starchy vegetable.

The tree is a very impressive one, with huge lacquered green, deep-lobed leaves, and is often encountered as a prized ornamental in tropical gardens and conservatories. These trees bear their usually roundish, warty, or prickly yellowish-green fruits throughout the year, with particularly heavy production during the early summer months. The fruits measure up to about eight inches in length by six inches in diameter, and may weigh as much as ten pounds apiece. There are many different and distinctive varieties of Breadfruit, the most highly prized being completely seedless-though the seeds, if present, are a delicacy when roasted. Whether seedless or not, the Breadfruit is inedible until it is cooked-boiled, steamed, or baked-as a vegetable.

The slightly immature fruit has a flavor and texture much like grainy bread when properly prepared, and is of an attractive ivory-white or vaguely yellowish color. In Hawaii and other islands of Polynesia, a sort of poi-much like that manufactured from taro-is prepared on festive occasions from it.

The species has been cultivated since prehistoric times, and is not today authentically known in the wild state. Its original haunts are presumably Malaysia, and it was transported to the various insular groups of Micronesia and Polynesia by the fantastic migrations of the early peoples. Realizing its unique potentials as a food, the notorious Captain Bligh succeeded in introducing it into Jamaica from Tahiti in 1792. This was Bligh's second such expedition, the first one being the disastrous voyage of the bounty.

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

The starchy fruit of the tree Artocarpus communis or A. incisa. Staple though seasonal food of the West Indies; eaten roasted whole when ripe or boiled in pieces when green.
Analysis per 100g: water 70g, carbohydrate 26g, protein 1.5g, fat 0.4g, kcal 110(0.47MJ), Fe 1 mg, vitamin B1 0.1mg, vitamin B2 0.06mg, nicotinic acid 1.2 mg, vitamin C 20 mg.

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