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1:00

And I am. Oh,

1:03

hey, it's that friend who looks so good in

1:05

hats. They never don't wear a hat.

1:08

Ali Ward, let's take a field trip. Coincidentally,

1:10

not coincidentally at all, this

1:12

is Indigenous History Month here in the United States of

1:15

colonized America. So we're heading to the

1:17

Pacific to chat about foods of native

1:19

populations and this movement to study and

1:22

cultivate and reintroduce them. Last

1:25

summer, I had this rare opportunity

1:27

while doing a symposium for USC's

1:30

Storytellers Program. I was teaching climate

1:32

scientists about Cycom, and I got to

1:34

meet some really lovely and super brilliant

1:36

folks. And one of them told me

1:38

that he was working in breadfruit and

1:41

knowing Jack about it, of course, I had to

1:43

corner him on a boat dock on Catalina Island

1:45

to start asking him

1:47

one million questions. One of these you may

1:49

have like me is what is a breadfruit?

1:53

Is it a baked good? Is it a sweet,

1:55

juicy thing on a vine? Is it a carb?

1:57

Is it meat? What's happening here? And we'll dig

1:59

in. But first, a quick primer is

2:01

that the islands of Hawaii are

2:03

right in the middle of the

2:06

Pacific Ocean. It's like 2,000 miles

2:08

in either direction from Polynesia or

2:10

North America. So about 1,000 years

2:13

ago, folks from Polynesia cruised over

2:15

on these big double-hulled canoes, guided

2:17

by stars. They got to Hawaii.

2:19

They were like, these volcano-made islands

2:22

are great. Let's live here. Let's

2:24

bring our pigs, chickens, dogs, and foods

2:26

like coconut and sugarcane and bananas and

2:29

taro root and breadfruit.

2:31

So many centuries later, European

2:33

explorers, we'll call them landed, then

2:36

thought the islands were sweet and

2:38

they were pretty. They liked the food.

2:40

So the roasted breadfruit smelled like bread

2:43

to these colonizers who called it breadfruit.

2:45

Although native Hawaiians have plenty of other

2:47

names for it, which we'll hear about

2:49

in a bit. But a botanist on

2:51

Captain Cook's ship took some notes in

2:53

praise of this food source. He wrote,

2:55

their chiefest sustenance, breadfruit, is procured with

2:57

no more trouble than that of climbing

2:59

a tree and pulling it down. If

3:02

a man should, in the course of

3:04

his lifetime, plant 10 such trees, which

3:06

might take the labor of an hour,

3:09

he would as completely fulfill his duty

3:11

to his own as well as future

3:13

generations that we Europeans can do by

3:15

toiling in the cold of winter to

3:17

sow and in the heat of summer

3:19

to reap the annual produce of our

3:21

soil. They were like, wow, what are

3:23

we doing working

3:25

so hard for wheat when breadfruit

3:28

is good and easy to grow

3:30

and harvest? Anyway, back to this

3:32

doc outside of LA, California at

3:34

the USC Wrigley Institute for Environment

3:36

and Sustainability's Storymaker Symposium of all

3:38

these climate scientists. So this wonderful

3:40

breadfruit expert studied environmental engineering at

3:42

Yale and did doctoral research at

3:44

Stanford University in biogeochemistry and social

3:47

ecology. He's now a professor of

3:49

indigenous crops and cropping systems at

3:51

the University of Hawaii at Manoa

3:53

and he said if I were

3:55

ever in Hawaii, he'd be happy

3:57

to have me visit. for a

3:59

tour of his breadfruit farm. And

4:01

so months later, already headed to

4:03

Hawaii for some interviews and a

4:06

visit to family, I stopped by.

4:08

I met some breadfruit and

4:10

some dogs and some other researchers

4:12

in this world. And now we

4:15

have this scrumptious field

4:17

trip on which to take

4:19

you. So all aboard,

4:21

let's go breadfruit growing with

4:24

ethnobotanist, indigenous ecobiologist Dr. Noah

4:26

Kekueva Lincoln and research

4:28

assistant and soil scientist who's

4:31

working on her PhD

4:33

at the University of

4:35

Hawaii at Manoa, Dali Altafuna

4:38

for this field trip,

4:40

a Hawaiian breadfruit revolution. So

4:42

to set the scene,

4:44

I've been on Catalina

4:46

Island outside of LA for

4:49

several days with about

4:51

a half a

5:00

dozen climate scientists and science communicators like

5:03

Liz Neely and Ed Yong. And for

5:05

days, we've all been sharing meals and

5:07

telling campfire tales over glasses of wine,

5:09

listening to stories of each other's lives

5:12

and just becoming pals. So it's near

5:14

the end of the trip. And now

5:16

Noah and I are walking down a

5:19

hill from the USC Ridley Institute to

5:21

the rocky shoreline where a boat is

5:23

docked bobbing as it waits to take

5:26

these climate scientists to a final dinner

5:28

together. You

5:30

have a minute while we walk? Yeah, we'll talk.

5:32

We'll walk and talk. Noah Lincoln, he, him. And

5:35

what's the genus and species of the breadfruit

5:37

that you study the most? Well,

5:40

they're all the same species.

5:42

They are. Articarpus altilis. Okay.

5:45

Are you an articarpologist? Have

5:47

you looked up to see if that's anology? You knew

5:50

I was going to be here. Did you look up

5:52

earlier? I did not. I tend to lump it all

5:54

under our broader work of ethnobotany or ethnobiology. I guess

5:56

we want to ology. I was going to say, how

5:59

dare you with that? with

24:00

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24:06

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24:09

effort to build a more robust food

24:11

system. So a link to them is

24:13

up at eatbreadfruit.com, and we'll link in

24:15

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Oh, cozy, cozy,

30:05

cozy. Okay, hop

30:07

in, let's find this farm, which is

30:09

one of many research sites that Noah

30:11

and his team of scientists are monitoring

30:13

and cultivating to learn where and how

30:16

to grow and distribute more ulu as

30:18

a staple crop for the islands. And

30:21

it's absolutely beautiful, all of that. Allie,

30:25

I'm guessing you don't have very good service to make a phone

30:27

call. I don't. I can

30:29

try and see, I've got one more. Hey,

30:32

Dolly. Hey, Dolly.

30:34

Yeah, we were lost. Yeah,

30:36

sorry, we're in kind of a spotty

30:38

jungle. We've been through over two little

30:41

bridges and we're now crossing

30:44

another one lane bridge. Okay,

30:47

so we're headed the right direction? Awesome,

30:50

thank you so much. See you in a sec. Bye.

30:53

We're really close. Is that her

30:55

truck? Yeah, there we go. Yeah, okay, cool, she

30:57

waved. Hi, Dolly. Oh,

31:00

look, this looks like an orchard on our left. Oh,

31:03

she opened it again. Hi,

31:06

Dolly. So,

31:09

first off, can you tell me your

31:11

first and last name? Dolly Altafumba. So,

31:13

we're looking at some very huge trees with giant

31:16

leaves and a couple of roosters, which is amazing.

31:18

How many breadfruit trees do you have here? We

31:20

have 30 trees. 30

31:22

trees. And there's four varieties

31:24

plus the ancestry, so

31:26

five in total. If someone comes in

31:29

here and is like, I don't even know what a breadfruit is, what

31:31

do you show them? The fruit first.

31:33

Okay, cool. Yeah, so these ones

31:35

are ready, they're matured. And so

31:38

do they get smoother when they're mature

31:40

like that? Yes, when they're smaller, there's

31:42

a lot spikier. These are

31:44

different varieties. What? This is the Hawaiian

31:46

variety. Okay. And this is the

31:48

ancestry one, this is the breadnut. So, this

31:50

one is like similar to a jackfruit, a durian.

31:53

And this one is the breadfruit, which is, it

31:56

becomes smoother as it matures. These

31:58

are the size of an oblong. long cantaloupe

32:00

or a large baby's head.

32:04

And when you say ancestry, does that

32:06

mean it's an older, like, cultivar? Yes,

32:08

the old, the ancestry first kind. And

32:11

then is there an advantage to having different cultivars?

32:13

Like, are these easier to grow or harvest, or

32:15

do they take, like, less time to mature? Well,

32:18

these ones are more woody in terms

32:20

of their growth. They

32:22

are bigger in size compared

32:25

to other varieties. They're a lot smaller. So

32:27

these can feed the whole family. And

32:30

they're different in flesh too. The smaller one,

32:32

which is our mafala, is the yellow flesh.

32:34

So you can do chips, stuff like that.

32:37

But this one, you can put them in

32:39

coconut milk or, you know, roast it. And

32:41

then what about the ancestry one? So this

32:43

one, it has a lot of seeds in

32:45

it. A lot of people say you can

32:47

roast the seed and eat it. But because

32:50

of that, we only, we're growing these for

32:52

propagation reasons. So

32:54

you will take the seeds and then you'll use those

32:56

to make more trees. How old are these trees?

32:58

These are seven years old, seven, eight years old.

33:00

They were planted in 2017. So

33:03

this is one of seven fresh

33:06

fruit sites we have around the islands. Dolly

33:08

told me that the research involves seven

33:11

different growing sites in various ecosystems, from

33:13

a sea spray environment to mountains on

33:15

several different islands, including Maui, and this

33:17

one we're at on the Big Island.

33:21

What environment is this? Is this a sea spray?

33:23

Is this a jungle? It has more rain. It

33:25

gets more rain compared to other sites and good

33:28

soil. I visited this farm with

33:30

my wonderful in-laws in your pod mom,

33:32

Jared, who asked about some patches of

33:34

dried, sappy stuff. What's the significance of

33:36

this kind of like almost this like syrup or something that

33:39

dried on the outside? Well, so they call that a latex.

33:43

It's not only on the fruit, but throughout the

33:45

whole tree. But that's one

33:47

indicator of maturity. And by

33:49

latex, they don't mean the latex you're

33:51

probably thinking about. Latex just means liquid

33:53

in Latin. And it is just like

33:55

a milky liquid from plants. And

33:58

latex can be composed of a whole. botanic

34:00

soup of proteins and algaloids and

34:02

starches and sugars and oils and

34:05

tannins and resins, which gum up

34:07

when they're exposed to air and

34:09

they act kind of like a

34:11

free band-aid for the tree. And

34:14

for more on this, you can

34:16

see the wonderful dendrology two-parter with

34:18

J. Casey Clapp and breadfruit latex

34:20

specifically. Should you lap it off

34:23

a tree? Let's not. Traditionally, it's

34:25

been used for boat caulking and

34:27

bird trapping and healing skin infections,

34:30

nerve pain, and I guess you could

34:32

ingest it to help with diarrhea if

34:35

you have that issue. Now, it was

34:37

April when we were crunching around the

34:39

leaves, which serve as great mulch for

34:41

the tree, as Dolly told me. But

34:44

when is it breadfruit season? I was

34:46

clueless. But Dolly said that harvest season

34:48

is from June or July all the

34:50

way to December. And in the past,

34:52

they have harvested a thousand pounds of

34:55

breadfruit in one day from this one

34:57

small orchard. But this little farm we're

34:59

recording at is a champion producer with

35:01

an even longer harvest window. It goes

35:04

on to like January, February, just because

35:06

I think it gets perfect

35:08

rain, good soil, just a good

35:10

site. You know, like what's the

35:12

biggest bread for you guys? Oh,

35:14

definitely the Oolahawai. Yeah, it's

35:17

about four kg. It's big. It's

35:19

like bigger than my head. Huge,

35:22

huge fruits we get off from those.

35:24

That's like eight pounds, like the size

35:26

of a bowling ball. The leaves are

35:28

more broader and then the fruits are

35:31

very different. They are more yellow compared

35:33

to other varieties. So this is

35:35

from the rotumen, Fiji

35:38

inside. Yellow flesh fruit, really

35:40

good for making Oolahawas. And

35:43

then it kind of like an ostrich skin

35:45

texture on the outside. It also

35:47

goes smoother in texture when it

35:50

goes yellow. It's mature. Then you know it's just

35:52

like a green light. You're like, okay, sweet. How

35:54

do you get up there? So

35:56

we maintain our trees by pruning

35:58

every year. You gotta at

36:00

least have 12 feet high in order

36:03

for us to get all the fruit. So it's

36:05

just me. So I have

36:07

fruit pickers. I just load them in the truck

36:09

and that's it. How do you make

36:12

sure that there's not a bunch of breadfruit on

36:14

the ground just being wasted? So I try to...

36:16

Every time I harvest, I would know all these

36:18

ones would be ready by next week. Or

36:20

if something happens, I

36:22

don't turn up next week, I know they're going to

36:24

be ready. So I just take them ahead of time.

36:26

Oh, and they can ripen off the tree? Yes,

36:29

they can. Kind of like a banana

36:31

or apples. Have you always

36:33

studied fruit? No. This

36:35

was... So I started with Noel Lincoln

36:38

as a master's student from Samoa. I

36:40

came here in 2018 on a

36:42

scholarship, but I was mainly focusing on

36:44

soil fertility. And then he had

36:47

this grant on breadfruit and I jumped it. And

36:49

then I'm from Samoa. We eat ulu

36:51

all the time. So yeah, it's perfect. Do

36:54

you have a way that you like it prepared? So

36:57

I'm traditional. I like it the old way

36:59

of putting any coconut milk when it's like

37:02

perfect maturity, a little bit

37:04

soft, but still firm. And then you peel

37:06

that and put in water boil, take out

37:08

the water and put coconut milk. Yeah,

37:11

that's my favorite way. Okay, let's say

37:13

that you plant one, but you're hungry

37:15

and impatient. And it takes how long

37:17

for a tree to produce fruit in the first place?

37:20

From like three to five years, you'll get

37:22

fruits. And then I've read in literature

37:25

that it can go up to 50 years. It

37:27

will still produce. That's just so much

37:29

year round. Yeah. Are there ways to

37:31

preserve it for the off months? So

37:34

there is one island that used to do

37:36

a lot of the fermenting. They dig a

37:38

hole and put all the ulu inside. And

37:40

we have new organizations now like Ulu Co-op

37:43

that takes all the fruit and then making

37:46

all that harvest. They froze

37:48

it, they dry it, they cook it. Yeah,

37:50

they do all sorts of stuff. Yeah, flour.

37:53

Do you have any tips for anyone who either

37:56

has a breadfruit tree or

37:58

is thinking about planting? on like any

38:01

tips on how to make your trees happy? Well,

38:03

as long as they're in a nice,

38:05

cool environment and with space, because Ulu

38:08

are big trees and they require space

38:10

to grow in, keep watering

38:12

them every day and get soil. They'll

38:15

be happy. Yeah, they'll be happy.

38:17

And of course, location, location, location, breadfruit

38:19

is grown successfully in 90 countries

38:22

throughout South and Southeast Asia and

38:24

Madagascar, the Caribbean, and of course,

38:26

the Pacific Islands. If

38:29

you're in a tropical region, pretty

38:31

much good to go. But apparently,

38:33

like many Americans, breadfruit hasn't been

38:35

able to thrive in Florida. Mexico

38:37

and Brazil, though, have breadfruit. And

38:40

be patient with them for a couple of years. Right?

38:43

Yes. Within three to five years, you'll

38:45

have fruits. So Dolly says that these ones can

38:47

grow up to 50 feet tall,

38:49

but some breadfruit trees can

38:51

be 85 feet tall, like

38:53

an eight-story building, almost 30

38:55

meters. But they

38:58

prune theirs back to help with

39:00

airflow and to reduce the chance

39:02

of disease that can flourish when

39:04

these dense leaf canopies stay too

39:06

moist. They also prune them to

39:08

keep them about 12 feet high

39:10

just for practical ladder climbing reasons.

39:13

I mean, you try getting breadfruit out of

39:15

something the size of a building. Ever

39:17

been bonked on the noggin by a breadfruit?

39:20

Nope. No. Knock on

39:22

breadfruit trees, right? Mm-hmm. I imagine

39:24

you'd have to look up if you're picking them, make

39:26

sure nothing's coming down. Yeah. You

39:28

have to just make sure you're holding it so it

39:30

doesn't drop and make sure no one's standing. It

39:33

might fall in there. Do they

39:35

shatter when they drop? Like if they're ripe, do they?

39:37

If they're ripe, they like... Yeah.

39:41

And then you're picking up breadfruit off the ground? Yes.

39:44

But we take them before that stage. So

39:46

they're not just goopy goops? Mm-hmm. So

39:49

some cultivars are round and spikier. Others

39:52

are egg-shaped, like a big

39:54

green spaghetti squash with smooth

39:56

reptile scale. I wanted to

39:58

cradle one like an infant.