BREAD FRUIT
One of
the great food producers in its realm and widely known, at least by name,
through its romanticized and dramatized history, the breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis Fosb. (syns. A. communis J.R. and G. Forst.; A. incisusL.f.) belongs to the mulberry family, Moraceae.
The common name is almost universal, in English, or tanslated into Spanish as fruta de pan (fruit), or arbor de pan, arbor del pan (tree), or pan de pobre; into French, asfruit a pain (seedless), chataignier (withseeds), arbre a pain (tree); Portuguese, fruta pao, or pao de massa; Dutch, broodvrucht (fruit), broodboom (tree). InVenezuela it may be called pan de ano, pan de todo el ano, pan de palo, pan de name, topan, or tupan; in Guatemale and Honduras, mazapan (seedless), castana (with
seeds); in Peru, marure; in Yucatan, castano de Malabar (with seeds); in Puerto Rico, panapen(seedless), pana de pepitas (with seeds). In Malaya and Java, it is suku or sukun (seedless); kulur, kelur, or kulor (with
seeds); in Thailand, sa-ke, in the Philippines, rimas (seedless); in Hawaii, ulu. The type with seeds is sometimes called
"breadnut", a name better limited to Brosimum alicastrum Swartz, an edible-seeded tree
of Yucatan, Central America and nearby areas. Its Spanish name is ramon and the seeds, leaves and twigs are prized as
stock feed.
The breadfruit tree is handsome
and fast growing, reaching 85 ft (26 m) in height, often with a clear trunk to
20 ft (6 m) becoming 2 to 6 ft (0.6-1.8 m) in width and often buttressed at the
base, though some varieties may never exceed 1/4 or 1/2 of these dimensions.
There are many spreading branches, some thick with lateral foliage-bearing
branchlets, others long and slender with foliage clustered only at their tips.
The leaves, evergreen or deciduous depending on climatic conditions, on thick,
yellow petioles to 1 1/2 in (3.8 cm) long, are ovate, 9 to 36 in (22.8-90 cm)
long, 8 to 20 in (20-50 cm) wide, entire at the base, then more or less deeply
cut into 5 to 11 pointed lobes. They are bright-green and glossy on the upper
surface, with conspicuous yellow veins; dull, yellowish and coated with minute,
stiff hairs on the underside. The tree bears a multitude of tiny flowers, the
male densely set on a drooping, cylindrical or club-shaped spike 5 to 12 in
(12.5-30 cm) long and 1 to 1 1/2 in (2.5-3.75 cm) thick, yellowish at first and
becoming brown.
The female are massed in
a somewhat rounded or elliptic, green, prickly head, 2 1/2 in (6.35 cm) long
and 1 1/2 in (3.8 cm) across, which develops into the compound fruit (or
syncarp), oblong, cylindrical, ovoid, rounded or pearshaped, 3 1/2 to 18 in
(9-45 cm) in length and 2 to 12 in (5-30 cm) in diameter. The thin rind is patterned
with irregular, 4- to 6-sided faces, in some "smooth" fruits level
with the surface, in others conical; in some, there may rise from the center of
each face a sharp, black point, or a green, pliable spine to 1/8 in (3 mm) long
or longer. Some fruits may have a harsh, sandpaper-like rind. Generally the
rind is green at first, turning yellowish-green, yellow or yellow-brown when
ripe, though one variety is lavender. All parts of the tree, including the
unripe fruit, are rich in milky, gummy latex. There are two main types: the
normal, "wild" type (cultivated in some areas) with seeds and little
pulp, and the "cultivated" (more widely grown) seedless type, but
occasionally a few fully developed seeds are found in usually seedless
cultivars. Some forms with entire leaves and with both seeds and edible pulp
have been classified by Dr. F.R. Fosberg as belonging to a separate species, A. mariannensis Trecul. but these commonly integrate with A. altilis and some other botanists regard them as included
in that highly variable species.
The breadfruit is
believed to be native to a vast area extending from New Guinea through the
Indo-Malayan Archipelago to Western Micronesia. It is said to have been widely
spread in the Pacific area by migrating Polynesians, and Hawaiians believed
that it was brought from the Samoan island of Upalu to Oahu in the 12th Century
A.D. It is said to have been first seen by Europeans in the Marquesas in 1595,
then in Tahiti in 1606. At the beginning of the 18th Century, the early English
explorers were loud in its praises, and its fame, together with several periods
of famine in Jamaica between 1780 and 1786, inspired plantation owners in the
British West Indies to petition King George III to import seedless breadfruit
trees to provide food for their slaves.
There is good evidence
that the French navigator Sonnerat in 1772 obtained the seeded breadfruit in
the Philippines and brought it to the French West Indies. It seems also that
some seedless and seeded breadfruit plants reached Jamaica from a French ship
bound for Martinique but captured by the British in 1782. There were at least
two plants of the seeded breadfruit in Jamaica in 1784 and distributions were
quickly made to the other islands. There is a record of a plant having been
sent from Martinique to the St. Vincent Botanical Garden before 1793. The story
of Captain Bligh's first voyage to Tahiti, in 1787, and the loss of his cargo
of 1,015 potted breadfruit plants on his disastrous return voyage is well
known. He set out again in 1791 and delivered 5 different kinds totalling 2,126
plants to Jamaica in February 1793. On that island, the seedless breadfruit
flourished and it came to be commonly planted in other islands of the West
Indies, in the lowlands of Central America and northern South America. In some
areas, only the seedless type is grown, in others, particularly Haiti, the
seeded is more common. Jamaica is by far the leading producer of the seedless
type, followed by St. Lucia. In New Guinea, only the seeded type is grown for
food.
It has been suggested
that the seeded breadfruit was carried by Spaniards from the Philippines to
Mexico and Central America long before any reached the West Indies. On the
Pacific coast of Central America, the seeded type is common and standard fare
for domestic swine. On the Atlantic Coast, seedless varieties are much consumed
by people of African origin. The breadfruit tree is much grown for shade in
Yucatan. It is very common in the lowlands of Colombia, a popular food in the
Cauca Valley, the Choco, and the San Andres Islands; mostly fed to live stock
in other areas. In Guyana, in 1978, about 1,000 new breadfruit trees were being
produced each year but not nearly enough to fill requests for plants. There and
in Trinidad, because of many Asians in the population, both seeded and seedless
breadfruits are much appreciated as a regular article of the diet; in some
other areas of the Caribbean, breadfruit is regarded merely as a food for the
poor for use only in emergencies. Nowadays, it is attracting the attention of
gourmets and some islands are making small shipments to the United States,
Canada and Europe for specialized ethnic markets. In the Palau Islands of the
South Pacific, breadfruit is being outclassed by cassava and imported flour and
rice. For some time breadfruit was losing ground to taro (Colocasia
esculenta Schott.) in Hawaii, but
now land for taro is limited and its culture is static.
The United States
Department of Agriculture brought in breadfruit plants from the Canal Zone,
Panama, in 1906 (S.P.I. #19228). For many years there have been a number of
seedless breadfruit trees in Key West, Florida, and there is now at least one
on Vaca Key about 50 miles to the northeast. On the mainland of Florida, the
tree can be maintained outdoors for a few years with mild winters but, unless
protected with plastic covering to prevent dehydration, it ultimately succumbs.
A few have been kept alive in greenhouses or conservatories such as the Rare
Plant House of Fairchild Tropical Garden, and the indoor garden of the Jamaica
Inn on Key Biscayne.
Prof. John Kurakar
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