The Breadfruit Festival Coming Up

Richmond Vale Academy will participate in the event with a stand in Chateaubelair, where there will be games and prices and information about the kidnapping of people (slave trade) from Africa to the Americas.

The Breadfruit Festival takes place every weekend during the month and it is a fitting food festival for the island because St Vincent is one of the islands to which the breadfruit (actually a vegetable) was introduced by Captain Bligh. He arrived with seedlings to plant as cheap source of food to feed slaves.

The breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) grows on trees and makes for a rather odd sight. The trees can grow to quite a size and are handsome looking with large, glossy lobed leaves (similar to fig, which belongs to the same moraceae family) that make for a dramatic backdrop to the fruit. The tree produces both male and female flowers and it is the female that evolves into a heavy, ball or oval-shaped fruit (about 7 inches in diameter) with a rough green rind. This surface is patterned with small hexagons (some 4-5 sided), each with a thorn or raised spot in the centre. As the fruit ripens the rind starts to weep a white, milky, latex-type substance and the skin discolours – becoming anything from yellow to light brown. Leave them for too long and the entire fruit goes soft and makes quite a mess when it eventually falls to the ground. Inside a perfectly ripened fruit, the flesh is cream coloured and of an unusual texture which has a central pithy core which is discarded. Once cooked - there are numerous ways to do this – breadfruit has the taste of a mildly nutty, slightly sweet and creamy potato with a dense, waxy quality due to the amount of starch it contains. It is widely used throughout the Caribbean in a range of dishes and even has medicinal qualities.

The Breadfruit Festival takes place in communities throughout the island, including the west coast village of Chateaubelair, a popular anchorage for yachts. Admission to the events is free and a variety of dishes made from breadfruit are exhibited, with locals and visitors being encouraged to support the farmers and to eat local food. Some of the dishes you might come across are breadfruit cheese pie, breadfruit puff, breadfruit pizza, breadfruit lasagne, breadfruit breadsticks, breadfruit chips, breadfruit quiche, sweet and sour candy (using the male blossom which looks like a blunt spike) and various breadfruit drinks. Local cultural also plays a part in the festival, so there is also dancing, drumming and performances by Calypsonians. During the Breadfruit Festival hoteliers and restaurateurs are also encouraged to feature the breadfruit on their menus.

St Vincent can actually boast over 25 different varieties of breadfruit and the fruit forms part of the country’s national dish of roasted breadfruit and fried jack fish. The local breadfruit species have some wonderful names, including Creole, Cocobread, Kashee, Sally Young, White, Butterheart, Hope Marble, Liberal, Waterloo, Soursop, Dessert, Old Wind, Captain Bligh, Floaters and Hogpen.