The grocery store had a few breadfruit, of all things. Captain Bligh sailed around the world to bring this to me. Now I have to figure out how to prepare it. Some articles I’ve seen suggest that it is “all but inedible.”
Any suggestions? Need answer fast; this thing is far from fresh.
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April 27, 2015, 2:14am
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http://cooklikeajamaican.com/roasted-and-fried-breadfruit/ http://happyandraw.com/cooked-vegan-breadfruit-pancakes/
A taste of home in faraway Borneo. Breadfruit is a fruit in the Artocarpus genus, so it is related to jackfruit and buah tarap but the flesh is very starchy and not at all sweet like its cousins. With origins in Papua New Guinea, it is cultivated and...
Est. reading time: 4 minutes
Starchy breadfruit has a texture similar to a potato and a yeasty scent like freshly baked bread when it's cooked. While you can cook breadfruit in a variety of ways, roasting it in the oven keeps the spongy fruit from becoming mushy, as it would...
Some Jamaican's believe that eating Breadfruit makes you 'fraid, or plainly put a coward. However, whether this 'ol time saying is true or not, I simply love cooking and eating Breadfruit.
Please come back and tell us how you cooked it, and whether you liked it.
By far the easiest, (and second best to eat) are bread-fruit chips (well, I guess the easiest is to just break it open and eat the inside) and you make them just like you make potato chips.
From my post in this thread last December:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=742639&highlight=breadfruit
I had read Jules Verne’s description of Ned Land preparing breadfruit in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when I was a kid, and thought it sounded interesting, but I never saw any breadfruit. A few years ago I mentioned to a co-worker about bringing durian to a party (as I’ve described it on this Board), and mentioned that I’d wanted to try breadfruit as well.
When my birthday came around, I was amazed to find that he’d put a box on my desk. Opening it, I found a breadfruit inside, about the size of a smallish soccer ball. He admitted that he got it for me because of my story. I still don’t know where he found it.
I looked up cooking instructions on the internet. It turned out to be very different from Verne’s description. You basically have to bake it first, then cut it into slices and fry it. There was considerably more “grain” inside than I expected. The end product was not the homogenous pastry-like confection Verne described, but a more plantain-like structured thing. It also didn’t have much flavor. I can see why it never caught on among most Europeans or North Americans.
In case you’re wondering, here’s what I said about durian
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=749192&highlight=breadfruit:
As I’ve mentioned befoire on this Board, I once brought Durian to a party. It was a weird, eclectic group, so I figured they’d find it interesting (as would I – I’ved been curious about durian ever since I first heard about it). So we set up a table for it, well downwind of the party. Everybody came over to sample it.
After the party, the host came over to tell me:
1.) It was a good thing that I brought it.
I had a similar reaction to Breadfruit, when somebody gave me one as a present. Not as good as it was made out to be, really bland, and texture unlike what I had expected.
Captain Bligh sailed around the world to take breadfruit to slaves in the Caribbean.
And the slaves didn’t like it, which is not a ringing endorsement of the taste and texture of breadfruit!
(I’m guessing the slaves weren’t spoiled by a surfeit of tasty, quality cuisine.)
You could always have a quiet word with Mr. Christian and… dammit!
