Breadfruit

thumb|right|Drawing of breadfruit by John Frederick Miller Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, Moraceae originating in the South Pacific and that was eventually spread to the rest of Oceania. Quotes    The happy shores without a law, ...Where all partake the earth without dispute,And bread itself is gather'd as a fruit;Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams:—The goldless age, where gold disturbs no dreams,Inhabits or inhabited the shore,Till Europe taught them better than before,Bestow'd her customs, and amended theirs,But left her vices also to their heirs. Lord Byron, The Island, or, Christian and his Comrades, 2nd ed. (1823) canto 1, sec. x, l. 209 The bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare yields,The unreap'd harvest of unfurrow'd fields,And bakes its unadulterated loavesWithout a furnace in unpurchased groves,And flings off famine from its fertile breast,A priceless market for the gathering guest. Lord Byron, The Island, 2nd ed. (1823) canto 1, sec. xi, l. 260 The bread-fruit, as we call it, grows on a large tree, as big and high as our largest apple-trees; it hath a spreading head, full of branches and dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a penny-loaf, when wheat is at five shillings the bushel; it is of a round shape, and hath a thick tough rind; when the fruit is ripe it is yellow and soft, and the taste is sweet and pleasant. The natives of Guam use it for bread. They gather it, when full grown, while it is green and hard; then they bake it in an oven, which scorcheth the rind and makes it black, but they scrape off the outside black crust, and there remains a tender thin crust; and the inside is soft, tender, and white, like the crumb of a penny-loaf. There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but all is of a pure substance like bread. It must be eaten new; for if it is kept above twenty-four hours, it grows harsh and choaky; but it is very pleasant before it is too stale. This fruit lasts in season eight months in the year, during which the natives eat no other sort of food of bread kind. I did never see of this fruit anywhere but here. The natives told us that there is plenty of this fruit growing on the rest of the Ladrone Islands; and I did never hear of it anywhere else. William Dampier, 1688, in Sir John Barrow, The Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of HMS Bounty (1831) ch. 2 Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,Whatever they are,As bribes to teach them how to executeSixteen sexual positions on the sand;This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, andOn Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pubBy private car.Such uncorrected visions end in churchOr registrar:A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;Nippers; the widowed mum; having to schemeWith money; illness; age. So absoluteMaturity falls, when old men sit and dreamOf naked native girls who bring breadfruitWhatever they are. Philip Larkin, "Breadfruit", in Neil Powell (ed.) Carpenters of Light: Some Contemporary English Poets (1980) p. 100 External links Category:Food and drink Category:Plants