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Bread fruit
This is the plant that the H.M.S. Bounty was carrying in the South Pacific when its crew mutinied. Captain Bligh's goal had been to transport the seedlings from Tahiti to the Caribbean, so that slaves there would have a ready source of starch and calories.
Breadfruit is one of the highest-yielding food plants, a single tree producing up to 800 or more fruits per season. The grapefruit-sized ovoid fruit have a rough surface
Breadfruit is high in carbohydrates and vitamin B and, when fully ripe, is a fair source of vitamin C and calcium. The starchy globes resemble white potatoes in taste and versatility, yet have their own character.
To steam, use breadfruit at any stage of ripeness. Steam whole and unpeeled breadfruit, or peeled and quartered, one hour or until tender.
To boil, place whole breadfruit in boiling water to float, for one hour or until tender. Or, boil peeled, cubed breadfruit in salted water to cover until tender.
To bake, place a soft, yellow-brown breadfruit in a baking pan, with water covering the pan bottom. Bake at 350 degrees one hour or until tender.
Serve the steamed, boiled or baked breadfruit with butter (or Butter Buds), salt and pepper.
Plantains are hard and starchy and are used for cooking, as contrasted with the soft, sweet banana varieties.
Plantains are a staple food in the tropical regions of the world, treated in much the same way as potatoes and with a similar neutral flavour and texture when unripe.
Ripe plantain is used as food for infants at weaning: it is mashed with a pinch of salt and is believed to be more easily digestible than ripe banana
Ripe plantains can be eaten raw, or they can be used for cooking at any stage of ripeness.
As the plantain ripens, its colour changes from green to yellow to black, just like its cousin the banana. Green plantains are firm and starchy and resemble potatoes in flavour. Yellow plantains are softer and starchy but sweet.
Extremely ripe plantains are black, with a softer, deep yellow pulp that is much sweeter than the earlier stages of ripeness, in fact the riper the plantain is, the sweeter it becomes.
Plantains in the yellow to black stages can be used in sweet dishes. Steam cooked plantains are considered a nutritious food for young children and the elderly.
Plantains are also dried and ground into flour.
Plantain fruit can be brewed into an alcoholic drink.
After removing skin unripe fruit can be sliced (1 or 2 mm thick) and fried in boiling oil, to produce chips.
The chips are typically labelled plantain chips if they are made of green plantains that taste starchy like potato chips.
If the chips are made from sweeter fruit, they are called banana chips
A well-known fruit throughout much of the world, the soursop's delicious white pulp, with tones of fruit candy and smooth cream is commonplace in tropical markets, but is rarely found fresh anywhere else. Inside its thin, leathery, green flesh is a large mass of creamy pulp, usually intermixed with 50-100 black seeds
The Soursop is usually processed into ice creams, sherbets and drinks, but fiber-free varieties are often eaten raw.
The fruit is covered in small knobby spines that easily break off when the fruit is ripe.
The thin, inedible, leathery green skin cuts easily to yield the large mass of cream colored, fragrant, juicy, and somewhat fibrous, edible flesh.
Soursops are processed into excellent ice creams, sherbets and beverages throughout much of Central and South America.
Sweet varieties of the fruit can be eaten raw, and are often used for dessert.
The canned pulp can be pureed or blended in the home, and easily transformed into a delicious desert, although fresh pulp is more desirable.
The leaves and roots of the tree have various medicinal properties. Soursops are high in vitamins B1, B2 and C.
