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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Breadfruit

If you have ever found yourself wishing that baguettes grew on trees — and who among us hasn’t? — we offer up a consolation prize: Should you spot what looks like a bumpy, melon-sized dinosaur egg on the shelf of your local market, consider taking it home with you. This Jurassic treasure is actually a breadfruit, a starchy ball that smells like warm bread when baked and has such versatility you could theoretically enjoy it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.

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Featured

 Breadfruit Is Delicious and Versatile. But It Shouldn’t Have to Save the World.

Over the last decade, breadfruit has emerged from those history books and become more popular in the press as a “​climate-resilient superfood.​” These stories are always framed similarly, making claims like “Breadfruit Has All The Makings Of A Global Future Food Trend” (​Forbes​) or “Breadfruit, A Tropical Superfood, Could Help The World’s Hungry Tropics” (​NPR​).

 What if potatoes grew on trees? An interview with the Breadfruit Institute’s Diane Ragone

But the beauty of breadfruit is that it grows on a long-lived tree—several decades—so after it’s been planted you can keep harvesting from the same trees over and over. Because it’s a perennial, it also requires less inputs, such as water and fertilizer, than annual crops that must be re-planted every year.

Articles of Interest

Is Breadfruit the Climate Change-Proof Food of the Future?

New research suggests it will fare better than our current staple crops under warming conditions.

Too Few Americans Are Eating a Remarkable Fruit

Breadfruit is a staple in tropical places—and climate change is pushing its range north.

'Food of the Future' Has One Hitch: It's All But Inedible

It's time the world learned to eat it anyway, says Ms. Ragone. After hopping around 51 Pacific islands to find different breadfruit types, she has assembled more than 120 varieties in a large grove at a National Tropical Botanical Garden site on Maui. Ms. Ragone and Ms. Lau are part of a movement among breadfruit fans here to teach people to like the tasteless stuff. They have started in Hawaii by pitching it to cooks—professional and domestic—and plan outreach campaigns for the fruit. Ms. Ragone suggests sautéing breadfruit slices in butter until golden brown, then sprinkling cheese to make breadfruit nachos.

A Chef Embraces an Elusive Fruit of Her Ancestors

Her take on beautifully ripe ‘ulu, or breadfruit in Hawaiian, is worth the wait.

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis): Processing, nutritional quality, and food applications

Breadfruit is an underutilized but highly nutritive crop containing complex carbohydrates while being low in fat. It is also a good source of essential amino acids (leucine, isoleucine, and valine). With a better understanding of breadfruit’s morphology, its potential as a global solution to food security has been gaining popularity.

Breadfruit emerges as protein-rich ‘superfood,’ healthy alternative to flour

There are plenty of popular “superfoods” which health-conscious dieters love to snack on. From berries to avocado, there are lots of choices rich in nutrients. A new study is adding another fruit to that list. Researchers in Canada say breadfruit can not only provide health benefits, but may also help areas dealing with food shortages.

Breadfruit Has All The Makings Of A Global Future Food Trend

Environmentally— as a low maintenance, high yielding crop with little need for human intervention, that can share space with a variety of fruits and vegetables across a variety of soil conditions and topographies— research suggests that breadfruit will grow well across tropical environments into the distant future.

Breadfruit History

Breadfruit originated in New Guinea and the Indo-Malay region and was spread throughout the vast Pacific by voyaging islanders. Europeans discovered breadfruit in the late 1500s. They were amazed and delighted by a tree that produced prolific, starchy fruits that, when roasted in a fire, resembled freshly baked bread in texture and aroma.

Breadfruit Is Here to Save the World

This calorie-rich, nutrient-dense, and climate-resilient crop has the power to step in for more common staples that can’t handle global warming.

Breadfruit, the Holy Grail of Grocery Shopping

About a month ago, one of our editors asked me if I could write a brief web piece on cooking with breadfruit, to accompany an upcoming piece about Jamaica in the magazine's travel issue (now online). "Sure," I said, after a little Googling to determine what the heck a breadfruit is. They grow on a tree in the mulberry family, and have edible white flesh that's soft and slightly sweet when fully ripe, or starchy and potato-like when under-ripe.

Breadfruit: A starchy, delicious climate and biodiversity solution

Largely thanks to the efforts of a few small organizations, breadfruit groves are popping up all over the world, spreading this tree far from its native habitat in Southeast Asia. Breadfruit’s versatility has also made it a rising star in the culinary world: its knobbly green fruit, which can grow as large as a soccer ball, can be roasted, grilled, steamed, baked or fried. It can be eaten alongside meat or stirred into stews, crisped into french fries, crackers or chips or baked into cheesecake-like pies.

Breadfruit: The Caribbean's hurricane-resistant food

Originally brought to Jamaica from the Pacific Islands by the HMS Bounty in 1794, breadfruit was an inexpensive, nutritious food for enslaved Africans labouring on British-owned sugar plantations. The trees grow quickly and fruit within a year of planting, producing 200 to 400 fruits per year the size of a large grapefruit or small watermelon. Breadfruit contains all nine essential amino acids and is a good source of fibre, protein and several minerals and vitamins. In the centuries since their introduction, breadfruit trees were abundant across Jamaica, and the fruit has been a staple of the country's cuisine.

Can Breadfruit Overcome Its Past to Be a Superfood of the Future?

Breadfruit, once plentiful in the Carribbean but tainted by association with slavery, may be making a comeback. It's easy to grow and high in nutrients, unlike many imported Western foods.

Captain Bligh’s Cursed Breadfruit

The biographer of William Bligh—he of the infamous mutiny on the Bounty—tracks him to Jamaica, still home to the versatile plant.

Cooking With Breadfruit

The tropical fruit is a daily food staple in cultures where the tree grows, including Hawaii, the Caribbean and Central America.

Could breadfruit be the next superfood? Researchers say yes

A fruit used for centuries in countries around the world is getting the nutritional thumbs-up from a team of researchers. Breadfruit, which grows in abundance in tropical and South Pacific countries, has long been a staple in the diet of many people. The fruit can be eaten when ripe, or it can be dried and ground up into a flour and repurposed into many types of meals.

Fruits You Probably Haven’t Heard of—but Might Soon

Will baobab, breadfruit, monk fruit and jackfruit take off in the U.S. like kale and quinoa? These entrepreneurs hope so.

Productive, Protein-Rich Breadfruit Could Help The World's Hungry Tropics

"You can eat breadfruit at any stage," says Ragone, who heads the National Tropical Botanical Garden's Breadfruit Institute. "When it's small and green, it tastes like an artichoke. When it's starchy and mature, it's the equivalent of a potato. When it's soft and ripe, it's dessert."

What the Heck is a Breadfruit and How Do You Eat It?

Although the strongest breadfruit taste correlation is to freshly-baked bread when cooked, the starch-rich breadfruit can also taste similar to potatoes, though riper varieties taste sweeter because the starch converts to sugar.

Resources

15 Reasons Why You Should Add ‘Ukwa’ To Your Diet

African breadfruit – or Ukwa in Igbo – is an edible traditional fruit. Belonging to the Moraceae family, it is related to other exotic fruits like breadnut, jackfruit, figs and mulberries. It is consumed, for example in Nigeria, where it is eaten as a main dish. The seeds are of particular interest because of their high nutrition value.

Breadfruit People

The Breadfruit People was established as an online community for everything breadfruit. The community aims to bring together growers, consumers, traders, processors, researchers, and lovers of breadfruit! At the core, we want to see more people to grow, buy, eat and use breadfruit and to connect with those already working with the crop. The Breadfruit People will showcase champions of the crop, share advice and be an advocate for breadfruit – after all – as they say, breadfruit is the fruit of the future!

The Breadfruit Institute

The Breadfruit Institute of the National Tropical Botanical Garden promotes conservation, study, and use of breadfruit for food and reforestation.