Roasted Kapiak

Breadfruit roasted whole in the embers the Melanesian way, the charred skin cut away and the chestnut-like seeds roasted a second time over the coals

Origin: New Guinea & the Bismarck Archipelago

From the journey of Breadfruit.

Breadfruit began here. Its wild progenitor, the seeded breadnut Artocarpus camansi, grows wild and cultivated in New Guinea, and the genetic work of Nyree Zerega and her colleagues traces most of the world's breadfruit to selection from it in New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. The oldest way of eating it is still the commonest there: the whole fruit goes into the fire. It is baked in the embers until the skin is charred and the flesh inside has steamed through, and then the skin and core are cut away and the seeds are lifted out. In much of Melanesia the seeds are the point. The breadfruits of New Guinea are mostly seeded forms, and their seeds, the size and texture of chestnuts and rich in protein, are roasted again over the coals and eaten hot. Malcolm Ross, in the Lexicon of Proto Oceanic, notes that in New Guinea they are often the only part of the fruit that is eaten at all. Eastward across the Pacific the balance tips the other way, and the seedless, fleshy breadfruits of Polynesia are the far end of a long selection away from the seed that began on these coasts. In Tok Pisin the fruit is kapiak, and the word carries a trap. In the Highlands kapiak also names a quite different tree, the large-leaved fig Ficus dammaropsis, sometimes called highland breadfruit. On the coasts and the islands, kapiak is breadfruit.

Ingredients

Breadfruit

  • 1 seeded breadfruit or breadnut, mature but still firm (about 1.5 kg)

To serve

  • 1 tsp salt
  • 150 ml thick coconut cream, to serve (optional)

Method

  1. Build a wood fire and let it burn down to a deep bed of glowing embers.
  2. Set the whole fruit on the embers and roast it for 1 to 1¼ hours, giving it a quarter turn every 15 minutes, until the skin is black all over and a skewer pushed in at the stem end meets no resistance.
  3. Lift the fruit out, let it cool for 10 minutes, then knock off the loose char and cut away the rest of the skin.
  4. Split the fruit, cut out the core, and lift out the seeds.
  5. Return the seeds to the edge of the embers, or put them in a dry pan over a medium flame, and roast them for 10 to 15 minutes, until the thin skins split.
  6. Peel the seeds and serve them hot with the flesh, sprinkled with salt, with coconut cream alongside if you like.

Notes

A domestic oven will do the work of the embers: roast the whole fruit at 200°C for about 1¼ hours, then finish the seeds in a dry pan. The flavour is milder without the smoke. Seeded breadfruit and breadnut are sold fresh in Caribbean and Pacific grocers, where breadnut usually goes by chataigne or breadnut. A seedless breadfruit can be roasted in exactly the same way; there are simply no seeds to follow.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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