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WonderVoyaging crop fact

Breadfruit, a tree with large starchy fruit, was carried from island to island by Pacific voyagers over thousands of years. Many varieties have no seeds, so they travelled as living shoots, and islanders developed hundreds of locally named varieties.

Breadfruit

FoodMigrationHistory

The story behind the card

Breadfruit was domesticated in the western Pacific, probably around New Guinea, and spread east with the ancestors of the Polynesians. Seedless varieties can only be grown from root shoots or cuttings, so voyagers had to keep young plants alive at sea, shielded from salt spray. A single tree can bear fruit for decades, and the fruit can be roasted, baked, or fermented and stored, which made it a staple food. In 1787 Britain sent HMS Bounty to Tahiti to collect breadfruit plants for plantations in the Caribbean; the voyage ended in the famous mutiny of 1789. Today the Breadfruit Institute in Hawaiʻi, founded in 2003, keeps a large collection of varieties and helps spread them to tropical countries.

Türkçe oku
İri ve nişastalı meyvesiyle bilinen ekmek ağacı, binlerce yıl boyunca Pasifik denizcilerinin kanolarında adadan adaya taşındı. Birçok çeşidin çekirdeği olmadığı için ağaç canlı fidan olarak yolculuk etti; adalılar yerel adlar taşıyan yüzlerce çeşit geliştirdi.

Ekmek ağacı Batı Pasifik'te, büyük olasılıkla Yeni Gine çevresinde evcilleştirildi ve Polinezyalıların atalarıyla birlikte doğuya yayıldı. Çekirdeksiz çeşitler ancak kök sürgünlerinden ya da çeliklerden yetiştirilebildiği için denizciler genç fidanları deniz serpintisinden koruyarak yolculuk boyunca canlı tutmak zorundaydı. Tek bir ağaç onlarca yıl meyve verebilir; meyvesi közde ya da fırında pişirilir, mayalandırılıp saklanabilir, bu da onu temel bir besin yaptı. İngiltere 1787'de Karayipler'deki plantasyonlara fidan götürmek için HMS Bounty'yi Tahiti'ye gönderdi; yolculuk 1789'daki ünlü isyanla sona erdi. Bugün Hawaii'de 2003'te kurulan Ekmek Ağacı Enstitüsü geniş bir çeşit koleksiyonunu koruyor ve bu çeşitlerin tropik ülkelere yayılmasına yardım ediyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Breadfruit
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