Breadfruit

Seeds Aside is currently in an oversea territory where bread fruit is an important part of diet. Though far away from where this species originated, the tree is heavily propagated (probably over a good third of gardens have a bread fruit tree in here). Every day, my neighbours give a try until they catch a fruit (except when they’re not mature enough, that is, a few weeks between each reproductive round). That’s a good way of getting food for free when monney is not here (since monney doesn’t grow on trees). We get to eat this too, though usually not because we need it (that would have been true last year, but not now).

So I give you a shoot to this picture. Follow the link to learn more about different varities (click on picture, HT Agrodiv).

Bread fruit, Afara variety

There are many interesting ways of preparing food out of this species, that I discovered recently. The first one, we can prepare a wonderful sweet with the male inflorescence (the species is monoecious). Not exactly candied fruit then, really candied inflorescence (there are many species or varieties within species for which you actually eat flowers or infloes, e.g.). It tastes fine, a flavoured stem that’s mildly spicy special. It’s difficult to find, since not many people take the time to prepare it (most go for classics they are certain to sell well, like coconut sorbets), but I got a source.

Another way, that I discovered even more recently (that’s two days ago), is that you can eat the fruit raw. You have to wait until it is really time to eat (a few days after you picked it from the tree). When it begins to soften, it’s time to cook, but if you wait it is almost ripe (slightly before though), you can eat it raw. And it’s good, it has a sweet fruity flavour. The friend that I learned this from told me it is tasting almost like durian, but without the inconvenience of durian (quoting wiki: “Wallace described himself as being at first reluctant to try it because of the aroma”). Since I never tried durian, I cannot tell you, all I know is that people have strong and strongly differing opinions about it.