Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BOS-BRI |
|
|
BREADALBANE , a large district
chief
district
earl
BREAD-FRUIT. This most important food staple of the tropical islands in the Pacific Ocean is the fruit of Artocarpus incisa (nat. ord. Moraceae). The tree attains a moderate height, has very large, acutely lobed, glossy leaves, the male flowers
flowers
supply throughout the year, is gathered for use just before it ripens, when it is found to be gorged with starchy matter, to which its esculent value is due. It may be cooked and prepared for use in a great variety of ways, the common practice in the South Sea Islands being to bake it entire in hot embers, and scoop out the interior, which when properly cooked should have a soft smooth consistence, fibrous only towards the heart, with a taste which has been compared to that of boiled potatoes and sweet milk. Of this fruit A. R. Wallace, in his Malay Archipelago, says: " With meat and gravy it is a vegetable superior to anything I know either in temperate or tropical countries. With sugar, milk, butter or treacle it is a delicious pudding, having a very slight and delicate but characteristic flavour, which, like that of good bread and potatoes, one never gets tired of." In the Pacific Islands the fruit is preserved for use by storing in pits, where the fruits ferment and resolve themselves into a mass similar in consistency to new cheese, in which state they emit an offensive odour; but after baking under hot stones they yield a pleasant and nutritious food. Another and more common method of preserving the fruit for use consists in cutting it into thin slices, which are driedin the sun. From such dried slices a flour is prepared which is useful for the preparation of puddings, bread and biscuits, or the slices are baked and eaten without grinding. The tree yields other products of economic value, such as native cloth from the fibrous inner bark of young trees; the wood
The bread-fruit is found throughout the tropical regions of both hemispheres, and its first introduction into the West Indies is connected with the famous mutiny of the " Bounty ," and the remarkable history of a small company of the mutineers at Pitcairn Island. Attention was directed to the fruit in 1688 byFig.7 Artocarpus incise, the Bread-fruit tree. Fig. I. Branch reduced about a 6th Fig. 5. Female flowers. natural size, with cuneate-ovate Fig. 6. Single female flower pinnatifid leaves, male flowers in a separated, with ovary, club-shaped deciduous catkin, and style and bifid stigma. female flowers in rounded clusters. Fig. 7. Ovary. Fig. 2. Transverse section of the Fig. 8. Ovary laid open to male spike with numerous flowers. show the ovule. Fig. 3. Male flowers. Fig. 9. A variety of the ovary Fig. 4. Single male flower separated, with 2 loculaments. with a perianth in 2 segments and Fig. io. Transverse section of a single stamen. a bilocular ovary. Captain Dampier, and later by Captain Cook, who recommended its transplantation to the West Indian colonies. In 1787 the " Bounty " was fitted out under command of Lieutenant William Bligh
Bligh
work
A somewhat similar but inferior fruit is produced by an allied species, the Jack or Jak, Artocarpus integrifolia, growing in India, Ceylon and the Eastern Archipelago. The large fruit is from 12 to 18 in. long by 6 to 8 in. in diameter , and is much eaten by the natives in India. This tree is chiefly valuable on account of its timber, which has a grain very similar to mahogany, and although at first light-coloured it gradually assumes much of the appearance of that wood
End of Article: BREADALBANE If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/BOS_BRI/BREADALBANE.html"> BREADALBANE </a> |
|
|
(Previous) BREAD |
(Next) BREADALBANE, JOHN CAMPBELL, 1ST EARL OF (c. 163... |
|
Sponsored Advertisements