And can it grow in North Carolina?
Lavina
This message was edited Feb 4, 2008 4:48 PM
What is bread fruit
Here's the Plant Files listing: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/59617/ It won't survive your winters outdoors, but if you can bring it inside then it might do OK.
I looked at the plant files and would love to try to grow some of these.
Lavina
As long as you have somewhere warm that you can keep it over the winter it's certainly worth trying.
Thanks, now I gotta find seeds.
Lavina
Forget it. It dies at 50 deg. It has to be grown in a greenhouse in Miami! Get a jackfruit or Kwai muk to try. You'll really need a greenhouse for those, too but they can take down to 45 deg with a little wind. They'll die at 30 deg.
Thanks for the info. Do you know where I could buy some to see what it taste like?
Lavina
You can buy canned jackfruit at oriental food stores; possibly Indian food stores. Comes green and ripened, both canned.
I'll have kwai muk seeds soon.
I would love to try to grow some as I hope to have greenhouse completed by Oct. I am in the NC region on the coast where it rarely drops below 40 but I brought all my plants from Raleigh and haven't pout them in the ground yet so I gotta have a green house.
I have 4 huge Papaya plants right now, hope they do well. We will see.
I am going to Raleigh in a week or so and will go to our Asian Market.
Is kwai a form of bread fruit?
Lavina
Gee, Breadfruit is kind of starchy and that's about all for eating. The little trees are deer food. The white tail deer here ate my little tree all the way down to the ground! My friend just recently had the same thing happen.
They get to be large trees. Farmer folks plant them by their pigpen for feeding the pigs when the fruit drops on the ground. I cook it the same as potatoes. They're supposed to start from root cuttings. Very pretty tree!
Here's a good page on some various species of Artocarpus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artocarpus
Attached is the kwai-muk. It's a tree from china and supposed to be the most cold hardiest of Artocarpus. Mature tree I've seen takes 31 deg with 20 mph winds so far. Sometimes there's a little branch damage but it's recovered ok.
Kwai muk's fruits size vary from pingpong ball size to plum size, sometimes close to tennis ball size but rarely. Outside of fruit is slightly fuzzy; unripe fruits bleed milk. When ripe, outside is mostly pale yellow; inside is pink. Fruits are a bit sweet/sour. They're just about to ripen here.
That fruit looks interesting. I have 6 Papaya plants that are growing like mad in large pots. Hope they produce some fruit. I will have to overwinter them in the green house which I hope is built by the end of Sept. If not I am gonna have a house full of plants.LOL
Sounds like I don't want the bread Fruit after all, maybe I read to much into the Bounty Trilogy. I love necterines and thought maybe it was some kinda fruit simular to it or Papayas. Oh well learn things here everyday.
Lavina
In Hawaii, bread fruit is eaten like a potato substitute. It is very starchy and isn't all that great.
breadfruit is considered a vegetable in the Philippines. it normally is cooked with dried or smoke fish and coconut milk http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/breadfruit.html#Climate
whereas jackfruit is considered fruit made into dessert. they are cook in numerous dessert dishes with coconut milk. we eat the fresh fruit raw also, for its fragrance and very delectable taste. my grandma preserve them for future use and sometimes makes candy with jackfruits http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=Artocarpus+heterophyllus&btnG=Google+Search , http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/jackfruit.html
any fruit or vegetable, if process or cook the "right" way is always delicious in my book.
edited to add the 3rd artocapus specie Kwai Muk http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/kwai_muk.htm ... this one i am not familiar with. it appears based on research there are many species in this Moraceae family.
This message was edited Aug 20, 2008 10:30 AM
Oh now I am getting hungary, maybe I can find some plants/seeds and try these.
Thanks everybody.
Lavina
When I visited Fiji 6 years ago I dined on breadfruit served with fish. Like many tropical fruits it's hard to describe the flavor. It has a neutral flavor that went well with the fish. IIRC it didn't really taste like anything. What I remember is that it made my tongue feel dry. Not much of a recommendation, huh?
BTW I loved the Bounty stories too! That's not the reason I went to Fiji but I did get to visit the Bligh Straights which run through the islands. Bligh and his men were the first Westerners to visit Fiji but didn't land there. This was after the mutiny when he sailed to Timor in a dinky little boat. The Fijians are proud that they scared him off from landing! I got to see the marker for the exact spot.
LOL, I will never got to Figi or out of the states probably but I really love that series also and the Hornblower books. My hubby has tried to read the General and Commanders series(I think that is the name of them) but he says they are so9 boring and he can get into them.
Lavina
I once ate breadfruit curry in southern India, yuk! It was awful! But the tree is handsome, it will only grow in the tropics and it is not really practical to bring this potentially huge tree indoors to over winter it.
Well back in my native country we take the outer layer of the fruit and make thin slices of the inside, then we deep fry them like french fries, put some salt on them and you have a crunchy veggie!