Tag: Artocarpus

I’ve been eating breadfruit

August 1, 2018

Breadfruit is an outstandingly productive staple crop that is roughly the equivalent of a potato that grows on a tree. These starchy fruits are not very good to eat raw, but once cooked they are wonderfully flavorful. Breadfruit is Artocarpus altilis, so it’s a close relative of delicious tropical fruits like jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) and … More I’ve been eating breadfruit

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Hi, I'm Craig Hepworth.
I use this site mainly to celebrate the remarkable potential of fruit and nut trees. The second purpose of the site is to try to build community on the open web, by experimenting with how independent websites can interact with each other in a 'social media' sort of way.

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Dehydrated home-grown tangerines! Turns out tangerines make a great dried fruit - the dehydrating process concentrates sweetness and the citrus flavors. Freshly-picked tangerines have a complex symphony of flavor notes, and even though not every one of those delicate taste elements makes it through into the dried fruit, a surprising number of them do, in concentrated form, and it seems like there are even a few new pleasant citrus-y flavor notes that arise during the drying process. The end product is a satisfying, almost candy-like treat, with a lot of distinctive tangerine flavor. My friend Colleen made these from some tangerines from my fruit grove, using an electric dehydrator. She says her five-year old daughter LOVES these - it's her kid's favorite snack. I love the fact that this is a way to turn the seasonal abundance of tangerines into a shelf-stable form, to enjoy all year long. I'm going to try making these with my rooftop solar dehydrator technique - scroll back in my feed a ways to see a video clip demonstrating my method for how I sun-dry fruits on my roof. Solar-dehydrating fruits is such a great solution - first using sunlight to grow food, then using the same free, zero-emissions energy source to turn that fruit into a shelf-stable sweet treat we can enjoy all year long. #tangerine #tangerines #driedtangerine #driedtangerines #mandarinas #driedfruit #dehydratedfruit #sweettreat #healthytreat

Loquats are ripening SUPER early this year! The taste of loquat is very roughly similar to a good peach. Also known as Japanese plum, loquat trees are so pretty that landscapers plant them purely for their ornamental value in warmer parts of the US, unintentionally creating an edible landscape, with free fruit available for the taking every spring. Seeds that people have spat out germinate readily in the humanscape, starting more loquat trees and increasing the springtime fruit abundance. There's an interesting cultural twist I've noticed regarding this fruit in my area of North Florida. In my experience around here, white people usually know this fruit by the name loquat, while African-American people are more likely to know it by the name Japanese plum. I have no idea how or when the difference in terminology started, but it seems so widespread, I suspect it's been in existence a long time. The species is originally from East Asia - the name "Japanese plum" apparently arose because introductions of this fruit to the US likely came from Japan, while the name "loquat" comes from a name for it used in China. When I talk to people about this fruit, I try to mention both common names, in case people know it by one name or the other. Whichever name they call it, many people around here have fond feelings for this fruit, and they keep their eyes out for the beautiful evergreen trees which ripen these golden sweet treats every spring. #loquat #Japaneseplum #nisperojapones #Eriobotrya #Eriobotryajaponica #freefruit #freefood #foraging #ediblelandscape #ediblelandscaping

We had a winter fruitluck, and it went great! Almost 40 people braved the chilly temperatures, and brought a tremendoud abundance of fruits to share. Two of my favorite fruits ripen in South Florida this time of year: pumpkin pie cheesecake fruit (aka canistel) and chocolate pudding fruit (aka black sapote), and I made a special effort to make sure these were available at our North Florida event - it was fun to see many people trying these amazingly delicious treats for the first time. We had the fruitluck once again at the University of Florida's Ethnoecology Garden, which has an extensive collection of edible and useful plants growing. We used leaves from banana plants in tbe garden as "tropical table cloths" and also for banana-leaf plates. Cleanup consisted of simply tossing them in the compost pile. We also had a hand-crank blender, for human-powered smoothies. The diversity of fruits people brought was amazing. I tallied it up, probably missed a few, but here's the list I recorded: canistel, mango, chocolate pudding fruit, papaya, tangerine, miracle fruit, prickly pear, jackfruit, grapefruit, Korean pear, strawberry, apple, melon, tejocote, red dragonfruit, yellow dragonfruit, rambutan, loquat, kiwi, Asian persimmon, kiwano, Cavendish bananas, red bananas, plantains, melon, yellow passionfruit, avocado, and pommelo. We're doing these fruitlucks in Gainesville four times a year, once for each season. Next one will be in April, timed for the height of mulberry and loquat season, when those sweet treats are dripping off the trees around here. #fruitluck #fruitparty #Gainesvillefruitluck

This was once the most-smuggled fruit from Mexico into the US. This is tejocote, or Mexican hawthorne, and I was excited to try it for the first time recently. In parts of Mexico people have deep traditions with this fruit, using it as one of the treats in a piñata, as part of a popular fruit candy, in ceremonies for Day of the Dead, and especially in ponche, a hot fruit punch people enjoy at Christmas and New Years. The demand for tejocote from the Mexican-American population in California fueled a brisk business smuggling this fruit across the border. Over the last few years, California-grown tejocote has reduced the need for smuggling. I'd never heard of this fruit until a few weeks ago, when I read some articles that sparked my interest. So I was delighted a few days ago at our local fruitluck when my friend Cheng Liu @logicalgirls showed up with a box of tejocote fruit she'd gotten at a farmer's market in Atlanta. So how does it taste? The first thing that struck me is that tejocote reminds me of eating a rose hip, but fleshier and with more flavor than any rose hip I've ever eaten. Seems like I also detect hints of the flavors of medlar, pear, apple, and cherry, and even a bit of resemblance to feijoa (aka pineapple guava). I like it. I planted the seeds. Hopefully in a few years we can celebrate the winter holidays around here with our own Florida-grown tejocote fruits. #tejocote #Mexicanhawthorn #Crataegusmexicana #Crataegus #hawthorn #Mexicanfood #Mexicanfruit #DiaDeLosMuertos

Jackfruits taste heavenly - but why do they get so HUGE? The answer is that they seem to have evolved their huge size to appeal to the largest of land animals - especially elephants. From a fruit tree's perspective, fruits are simply a way to entice an animal to swallow its seeds, and hopefully deposit them intact in a favorable location miles away, encased in a pile of organic fertilizer. Like most mammals, elephants don't have good color vision, but they do have an excellent sense of smell. Jackfruit has evolved to suit these requirements perfectly. It doesn't bother creating brightly-colored pigments which its animal partners can't see. Jackfruit barely changes color at ripening - instead it announces the fruit's maturity by releasing a powerful fruity aroma. Elephants can smell this fragrance from long distances, and they'll cross many obstacles to get to ripe jackfruits. Even a jackfruit orchard protected by an electrified fence isn't safe in elephant country - elephants have been known to push over small trees in order to knock down an electric fence standing between them and ripe jackfruits. You can find videos online of elephants harvesting jackfruits - the tree sprouts these fruits right out of its trunk, conveniently within easy elephant reach. Both elephant-like creatures and the genus Artocarpus which jackfruit is a member of have been around for tens of millions of years, so this is likely a very ancient partnership. We humans are newcomers, the happy beneficiaries of a fruit evolved for giants. #jackfruit #jaca #nangka #Artocarpus #Artocarpusheterophyllus #megafauna #megafaunaldispersalsyndrome #symbiosis

This is the "pumpkin pie cheesecake fruit" I posted about recently. This is canistel, my favorite fruit of all. Rich, creamy, sweet, this fruit is an extraordinary taste experience. Several years ago, I was working a job in South Florida for a number of months, and those months just happened to coincide with the fruiting season for canistel: winter to spring. So I bought a membership at Florida's great tropical fruit botanical garden, the Fruit and Spice Park, @fruitandspicepark, which has 37 acres of all-you-can-eat tropical fruits, including a number of canistel trees. The park's rules are simple: you're not allowed to pick fruit off the trees, and you're not allowed to take fruit out of the park, but you're free to eat any fruits that have fallen off the trees. From December to April that year, I visited Fruit 'n Spice several times a week, and every time I gorged myself on canistel fruits till I could not fit another mouthful in my belly, and there were still dozens of luscious, perfectly ripe canistel fruits all over the ground. I think by about my third or fourth visit, I'd eaten enough fruit to be worth the entire annual membership fee I'd paid. Very happy times. If you should find yourself in South Florida, definitely pay a visit to the Fruit and Spice Park. (They've got many, many other types of tropical fruits growing there that you can eat.) For some reason, canistel is a fairly obscure fruit. It deserves to be much more widely grown and enjoyed. It's in season now in Florida, and shows up sometimes in markets - look for it. And if you do find some, be sure to plant the seeds, so we can make the future more filled with canistel trees. #canistel #eggfruit #Pouteriacampechiana #Sapotaceae #PumpkinPieCheesecakeFruit

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Fruits Listed by Plant Family

Anacardiaceae (Cashew Family): Mangoes, cashew, mombins, jun plum, jocote, wani, etc

Annonaceae (Custard-Apple Family): Cherimoya, guanabana, custard-apple, sweetsop, sugar-apple, Rollinia, biriba, pawpaw, etc

Apocynaceae – (Milkweed Family): Carissa, Natal plum, mangaba, pitabu, sorva

Arecaceae – (Palm Family): Coconut, pejibaye, African oil palm, American oil palm, Butia palm, maraja palm, etc

Burseraceae (Gumbo-Limbo Family): Dabai, safou/butterfruit, pili nut

Cactaceae (Cactus Family): Prickly-pear, dragon fruit, pitaya, Peruvian apple-cactus

Caricaceae (Papaya Family): Papaya, babaco

Chrysobalanaceae (Coco Plum family): Coco Plum, sunsapote, egg nut

Clusiaceae/Guttiferae (Mangosteen Family): Mangosteen, mammee-apple, charichuela, imbe, bacuri, madrono, cherapu, etc

Ebenaceae (Ebony Family): Asian persimmon, American persimmon, chocolate pudding fruit, etc

Ericaceae (Heath family): Blueberry, cranberry, sparkleberry

Euphorbiaceae – (Euphorbia Family):

Fabaceae – (Bean Family):

Fagaceae (Oak family)

Juglandaceae (Walnut Family)

Lauraceae (Avocado Family)

Malpighiaceae (Acerola Family)

Meliaceae (Neem family)

Moraceae (Mulberry Family): Mulberries, jackfruit, fig, breadfruit, marang, tarap, chempedak, African breadnut, Maya nut, che, etc

Musaceae (Banana Family)

Myrtaceae (Myrtle Family): Guava, Surinam cherry, pitomba, grumichama, jaboticaba, wax-apple, etc

Olacaceae, (Olax family)

Oleaceae, olive family

Oxalidaceae (Oxalis Family): Carambola/starfruit, bilimbi

Passifloraceae, passionfruit family

Protea Family (Proteaceae)

Punicaceae, Pomegranate Family

Rhamnaceae, Jujube family

Rosaceae (Rose Family)

Rutaceae (Citrus family)

Sapindaceae, (Litchi Family)

Sapotaceae (Sapote Family)

Sterculiaceae, (Chocolate family)

Vitaceae (Grape Family)

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