Fruit Mutiny: Whither the breadfruit?

The bread-fruit tree is ubiquitous in Samoa and it is a food staple used much like potatoes. My father planted a tree in the early seventies in Fasito'outa that is still feeding families in the area today.

It has been used for famine relief in the past. They were buried in pits and as a consequence they fermented, and the foul-smelling masi was used as food.

Best cooked baked, especially in an umu earth-oven with fish, pork and chicken. Mmmm, memories.

Breadfruit range doesn't seem particularly suited for "the lower 48". According to this map, it's growing range is hugging the Equator. http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer12articles/will-bread...

For those looking for something similar to breadfruit, jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is pretty easy to get in many ethnic shops in the UK. It can be eaten as a (sweet and rather odorous) fruit, but when not quite ripe it's used for all sorts of Asian curries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit#Culinary_uses_for_unr...

Here's an NPR article about it: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/01/308708000/heres-...

As interesting as this is, I don't think it'll solve anything given it grows only around the equator. I know in the Caribbean they use a lot of breadfruit, as well as 'breadnut' (similar, but slightly different), and a bunch of other starchy fruits, tubers, and vegetables that we don't have. Of course, the reason is that those things grow there, good luck growing any of it in Canada (where I live). And imported these things aren't cheap.

On the road to Hana there used to be a place that sold smoked breadfruit tacos. Alas, by the time I got there they stopped selling it as it's labor intensive and tourists wouldn't order it, preferring to eat kalua pig.

I used to have a breadfruit tree in my yard in Tennessee. We would take the fruit as it fell and line it up in the street and watch cars run over them. Seeing them crushed was pretty satisfying (I was 9 years old at the time).

Then one day a car lost traction on our breadfruit gauntlet and the driver got terribly pissed. Haven't played with the fruit since.

I really like breadfruit - I prefer it over potatoes. But it's not as simple as potatoes. It's slightly toxic when raw (depends on the species) and preparation, although not difficult, isn't as simple as potatoes.

That said, if it was actually regularly available I would buy it regularly. I always assumed it wasn't available for the same reasons mangosteen wasn't available in the u.s. - that it was banned due to worry about parasites. We get mangosteen here in europe and I assume it's now available in the u.s. too. I'll have to look for some breadfruit now...