What Guadeloupe Calls Fruit à Pain, and How We Cook It

In the market in Pointe-à-Pitre there is always a pile of them at the end of a stall. Big, round, green, the skin covered in little bumps like a football that has been left in the sun too long. Tourists walk past. Grandmothers stop, press one with a thumb, and argue about the price.

That is breadfruit. At home we call it fruit à pain, and in my mother’s kitchen it did the job a potato does here in England. Boiled with a little salt, it went next to the fish. Fried, it disappeared before it reached the table. On a slow day it went into a soup that made the whole house smell of Sunday.

People in the UK ask me about breadfruit all the time. Here is what I know, from the market to the pot.

What is breadfruit?

Breadfruit is the large, round, starchy fruit of a tropical tree in the mulberry family, a close cousin of jackfruit. It can weigh anything from a quarter of a kilo to six kilos. Picked mature and cooked, it is eaten like a potato: boiled, roasted, fried or mashed.

Its botanical name is Artocarpus altilis. The tree is tall, up to 26 metres, and generous: one tree can carry 200 or more fruits, each about the size of a grapefruit, in a single season. Most breadfruit grown today is seedless.

What does breadfruit taste like?

Cooked, breadfruit tastes like a potato that has spent time near an oven. The flavour is mild and starchy, and the smell when it is roasting is close to freshly baked bread. That is where the English name comes from, and it is not an exaggeration.

The texture depends on how ripe it is, and this matters more than anything else. There are three stages:

• Immature. Bright green, bumpy, smaller than full size, and the flesh just under the skin is pale green. Do not buy it. It stays rubbery and watery however long you cook it, and it will not mature after picking.
• Mature. Greenish-yellow skin, smoother surface, and brownish cracks between the little segments. The flesh inside is firm and creamy white or pale yellow. This is the one for cooking.
• Ripe. Soft to the touch with a sweet, perfumed smell. The flesh turns creamy and sweet, and it goes into cakes, pies and desserts rather than next to the fish.

A firm, mature breadfruit will ripen and soften in one to three days on the kitchen counter. If you want to slow that down, put it in the fridge. The skin goes brown but the flesh stays firm.

Where breadfruit comes from, and why the British wanted it

Breadfruit is not Caribbean by birth. The wild tree is native to New Guinea, the Maluku Islands and the Philippines, and the seedless fruit we know was bred over many generations in Polynesia from its seeded relative, the breadnut. Today one botanical garden in Hawaii alone keeps more than 150 varieties.

It came to the Caribbean in the 18th century, and the reason is not a happy one. The people asking why did the British want breadfruit get a plain answer from history: colonial planters wanted a cheap, filling food for the enslaved people working their plantations.

The first attempt is the famous one. HMS Bounty, under William Bligh, sailed for Tahiti in 1787 to collect breadfruit plants, and that voyage ended in mutiny and failure. Bligh tried again in 1791 with two ships, the Providence and the Assistant. This time seedless breadfruit plants from Tahiti reached St Helena, St Vincent and Jamaica. The tree reached the French Antilles in the same century.

I think about that when I cook it. A food brought to feed people who had no choice, and they made it their own.

How Guadeloupe cooks fruit à pain

At home breadfruit is everyday food. It sits in the market next to christophine, yam, sweet potato and cassava.

• Boiled, next to the main dish. The simplest way. Pieces boiled in salted water and served the way you would serve potatoes. A Sunday fish court-bouillon is often served with fruit à pain or sweet potato on the side.
• Soupe de fruit à pain. A breadfruit soup, one of the traditional recipes the cooks of Guadeloupe still pass on.
• Migan de fruit à pain. A classic of our island, the kind of dish a Guadeloupe chef chooses when asked to cook for the region on French national television.
• Bébélé. The stew of Marie-Galante, our neighbouring island: beef tripe, green bananas, fruit à pain, pig’s tails and little flour dumplings called dombrés, cooked long and slow.
• Brandade with breadfruit. Salt cod brandade where breadfruit takes the place of potato. Creamy, salty, very good.
• Popot de fruit à pain. In Guadeloupe the small fruits are called popot, and they go into jam.
• Breadfruit flour. Dried and ground, it can replace wheat flour, and some cooks make crêpes with it.

If you want the bigger picture of what we eat at home, I wrote a guide to Guadeloupean food.

How to cook breadfruit at home

First, the sap. Breadfruit has a little white sap that sticks to knives and pans. Soak the whole fruit in cold water for a minute or two, wash it, and dry it. Rub your knife with a little oil before you cut. If anything sticks, oil and a scrubbing brush take it off before you wash up.

Then quarter it from top to bottom and slice away the core. The skin is edible, but easiest to peel after cooking.

Steamed or boiled. Steam the quarters until a fork goes in easily. You can boil them too; boiled breadfruit takes on more water, which is good for mash and soup, less good for frying. Either way, do not overcook it, or it turns mushy.

Roasted breadfruit. Roasted breadfruit is the Jamaican way, done over an open fire so the inside picks up a smoky taste. In a home oven, halve it, put it cut side down on an oiled tray with one or two centimetres of water, or wrap it whole in foil, and bake at 190 to 205°C for about an hour, until a knife goes through.

Fried breadfruit. This is the one children fight over. Steam or boil the pieces first until just tender, cut them into wedges, and fry in oil heated to 180°C until golden. Salt them straight away.

Mashed. Use it anywhere you would use a potato: curries, stews, soups, mash with butter.

Cooked breadfruit freezes very well. Steam the pieces, let them cool completely, then freeze. They keep their texture for up to a year. Do not freeze it raw, because it comes back tasting of sap.

Breadfruit vs jackfruit

They are cousins in the same family, which is why people mix them up. But they are different fruits, and if a recipe asks for breadfruit, use breadfruit.

The other confusion is with plantain, which also does the starchy job in a Caribbean kitchen. Plantain is a cooking banana; breadfruit grows on a tree. I explained plantain properly in my piece on what plantain is.

Finding breadfruit in the UK

In the UK you will find fresh breadfruit in Caribbean grocers and from exotic fruit sellers online. Some shops sell it by the half, which is a good way to start.

Choose one that is greenish-yellow with a few brown cracks between the segments. Avoid bright green ones. Cook it within a day or two, or keep it in the fridge.

What I put on fried breadfruit

Breadfruit is mild, so it wants something with character next to it.

When I fry breadfruit wedges here in England, I put a small bowl of our Caribbean Sauce Creole on the table. It is mostly onion, with green chilli, vinegar and white pepper, so it brings sweetness, sharpness and a gentle heat without hiding the breadfruit. Dip, eat, repeat. It also works spooned over boiled breadfruit next to grilled fish.

FAQ

What does breadfruit taste like? Cooked mature breadfruit tastes mild and starchy, like a potato, with a smell close to freshly baked bread. Ripe breadfruit is soft and sweet and is used for desserts.

Why did the British want breadfruit? In the 18th century colonial planters wanted a cheap, filling food for the enslaved people on Caribbean plantations. William Bligh’s second voyage in 1791 brought seedless breadfruit plants from Tahiti to St Vincent and Jamaica.

Is breadfruit the same as jackfruit? No. They are related and belong to the same family, but they are different fruits. Breadfruit is the starchy one cooked like a potato.

How do you know when breadfruit is ready to cook? Pick a mature fruit: greenish-yellow skin, brownish cracks between the segments and firm, pale flesh. Avoid bright green, immature fruit, which stays rubbery when cooked.

Where can I buy breadfruit in the UK? Caribbean grocers sell fresh breadfruit, and some exotic fruit sellers deliver it. Some shops sell it by the half.

Breadfruit is not the only big green fruit on a Guadeloupe market stall: the spiky one beside it is corossol, and here is how I eat soursop, from ripening it to making the juice.

Roasted breadfruit is one of the classic sides for Jamaica's national dish, and you can read about the star of that plate in my piece on ackee and how to cook it safely.

One small thing to try this week

Buy half a breadfruit. Wash it, cut it into wedges, cut away the core, and steam the wedges until a fork just goes in. Let them cool for ten minutes, then fry them in hot oil until golden and salt them while they are still hot.

That is fried fruit à pain, and it is how I would introduce anyone to breadfruit. Crisp outside, soft and almost bready inside. If you like it, next time boil a whole one and serve it with fish the way we do on a Sunday.

And if you already know roasted breadfruit from a Jamaican kitchen, try it fried the Guadeloupe way and tell me which you prefer.

JP