YUM!!! I love breadfruit! Contrary to popular opinion of the uninitiated, certain cultivars of breadfruit are quite delicious! The seedless variety commonly found growing in the jungles of Guam get sweet and fragrant when ripe. We call them "lemai." I enjoy them by cooking them when they are just barely starting to ripen. A common way to cook them on the island is to roast a semi-ripe fruit whole over an open fire until the skin is charred on all sides. It is then cooled off and peeled, revealing dull yellow flesh that is moist and tender--similar to a dense baked potato. It tastes like a sweet, dense cake with notes of vanilla and smoke. Delicious! Some may think that the smokey note would throw it all off, but many newbies say that it does blend in with the overall flavours. It sounds weird but that's as good as I can describe the local variety grown here. I understand that almost all varieties taste different from others and have their own specific cooking/eating attributes which make them more or less desirable. I'll take a breadfruit over plain rice, noodles/pasta, and potatoes any day! On another note, my breadfruit trees are barely over a foot tall. I started them by placing about 15 1-ft. long root cuttings placed in a shallow cut 55 gallon drum covered with moist potting soil. They took about 2 months to sprout out of the soil. I then added organic fertilizer to help them along. As of right now, I think I have around 10 sprouts total. I'll have a forest in no time!
Chris
