Migan de Fruit à Pain

The Antillean breadfruit mash: breadfruit cooked with salted pork tail and aromatics until it collapses, then crushed in the pot into a coarse, savoury purée

Origin: Martinique & the French Antilles

From the journey of Breadfruit.

Migan is a thick Antillean dish of breadfruit cooked to the point of collapse with salted meat, most often pickled pork tail, and crushed in the pot with its broth into a coarse, savoury purée. Chives, thyme, garlic, and a whole hot pepper, pierced or left intact according to the cook's nerve, flavour the pot. It is homely food, and in Martinique and Guadeloupe a family's breadfruit tree was long treated as part of the house: the historian Monique Pouliquen notes that under slavery a breadfruit tree passed to the next generation with the family's cabin and garden. The French had breadfruit in the Americas before the British. The first was the seeded tree, which the naturalist Pierre Sonnerat had established on Réunion and Mauritius from 1772 and which the ship L'Alexandre landed at Cayenne in June 1788. Between April 1791 and May 1792 the botanist Joseph Martin distributed 777 breadfruit trees in French Guiana and 81 more for Martinique, Guadeloupe, and France. He wrote that the seeds were delicious boiled like chestnuts, and châtaigne, the chestnut, is exactly what the Antilles still call the breadnut. The seedless fruit, the one a migan needs, came later, from Tonga by way of Java, Mauritius, and Paris, and reached Cayenne in November 1797. The reception was cool at first. Jean-Baptiste Leblond reported from Cayenne in 1797 that the fruit was little eaten, because it needed care and awkward preparation and the banana and cassava served as well. It took the nineteenth century to make it ordinary.

Ingredients

Meat

400 g salted pork tail (queue de cochon salée) or salt pork, soaked overnight

Migan

1 mature breadfruit (about 1.2 kg), peeled, cored, and cut into 5 cm chunks
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
4 stems of Caribbean chives (cives) or spring onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
3 sprigs of thyme
1 whole Scotch bonnet or bonda man Jacques pepper
1 lime, juiced
1.2 l water
0.5 tsp ground black pepper

Method

Drain the soaked pork tail, cover with fresh water, bring to the boil, and boil for 5 minutes. Drain again and cut into pieces.
Heat the oil in a heavy pot and soften the onion, chives, and garlic.
Add the pork, thyme, and water, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes, until the meat is tender.
Add the breadfruit and the whole pepper, and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, until the breadfruit is falling apart.
Crush the breadfruit roughly in the pot with a wooden spoon, adding broth as needed, until you have a thick, coarse purée studded with the meat.
Finish with the lime juice and black pepper, and serve hot.

Notes

Migan is also made with green banana, with pumpkin (giraumon), or with a mixture, and the salted meat varies from house to house.

The Gastrographer

Name: Migan de Fruit à Pain
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Martinique & the French Antilles
Ingredients: 400 g salted pork tail (queue de cochon salée) or salt pork, soaked overnight; 1 mature breadfruit (about 1.2 kg), peeled, cored, and cut into 5 cm chunks; 2 tbsp vegetable oil; 1 onion, finely chopped; 4 stems of Caribbean chives (cives) or spring onions, chopped; 3 garlic cloves, crushed; 3 sprigs of thyme; 1 whole Scotch bonnet or bonda man Jacques pepper; 1 lime, juiced; 1.2 l water; 0.5 tsp ground black pepper

Mapping Culinary History

To explore — select an ingredient below.

To explore — select an ingredient below · click any location dot on the map for recipes and stories · browse the information panel on the right · trace the full journey on the timeline.

Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control