A starchy-fruited Pacific island tree, central to Polynesian food culture and the cargo at the heart of the mutiny on the Bounty.
Where it grows
Breadfruit was domesticated in New Guinea and carried by Pacific seafarers across Polynesia, where it became a staple of Hawaiian, Samoan, and Tahitian cuisine. The famous 1789 mutiny on Captain Bligh’s Bounty occurred during a British expedition to transport breadfruit saplings from Tahiti to the West Indies as cheap food for enslaved plantation workers.
How to recognise it
A handsome spreading tree with large, glossy, deeply lobed leaves up to 60 centimetres long that resemble enormous fig leaves. The fruits are roughly spherical, green and warty when young, up to 30 centimetres across, hanging singly or in small clusters. Cut surfaces exude milky latex.
Uses
When mature but still green, breadfruit is cooked — roasted, boiled, fried, or pit-baked — producing a starchy, mildly sweet flesh said to taste like fresh-baked bread. A single tree can yield more than 200 fruits per year. The light wood was traditionally hollowed into outrigger canoes, and the latex used as caulking and chewing gum.
In culture
Breadfruit is the emblem of Pacific food sovereignty, and the Global Breadfruit programme distributes saplings to combat hunger in the tropics.