Yeah, we continue to be swamped with endless jobs around the farm, leaving us with too little time for blogging...but this post has been long overdue...it regards the greatest discovery we’ve made so far...possible the greatest fruit now in our arsenal of awareness…
Enter the breadfruit!
From this point on known as ulu…North Americans have probably never heard of ulu, let alone tasted it, unless they have some family or relations near the tropics.
Michelle and I found it once in Toronto at an asian market, and tried it raw. Wow, it sucked. We later on found out that the natives cook the hard fruit in one of many ways before eating. Apparently it is used as a potato-type starchy vegetable when cooked.
Sounded lame to us…
We finally came across it again here and weren't all that excited about it, until we realised that people were cooking the fruit while it was in its unripe state, which begged the question ‘what does a fully tree-ripened ulu taste like?’
A quick search of the internet uncovered one person's description claiming ripe ulu is like ‘a cross between durian and jackfruit’. A cross between durian and jackfruit??!!! Are you freakin’ kidding me??? Possibly our two most favorite fruits combined, mixed into one heavenly package? Surely you jest!
If you are fruity naive, let me give you a quick rundown on durian and jackfruit...jackfuit, which you will meet firsthand in the next blog, is the inspirational taste for juciy fruit gum. Get your skis shined up, motherfucker. Durian is custard-like sweet filling found in a massively spiny coconut-like ball of awesomeness. Some people find the ripe smell of a durian repulsive, but those people a smell-impaired pinheads with no sense of appreciation for God's little slices of heaven raining down on us from the trees above. A perfectly ripe durian is a desserty treat unlike any fruit you've ever tried…I highly recommend…
Anyhoo...these are some big boots to fill...and our quest to find a ripe ulu began…
Enter the farmer’s market…
While perusing the local goods during the weekly Sunday event, our neighbours from a local farm apparently heard the word of our quest for the perfect ulu, and gave us a couple to try...cha-ching! Phase one complete...acquire ulu! Our first acquisition did not provide us a tree-ripened fruit, but it was a start nonetheless. We decided to let one ripen, and do some cooking experiments with the other one..
Enter the mad scientists…
Hmmm…ulu french fries?? Ulu pancakes? Ulu hashbrowns? Let's try it all!
We baked the ulu for an hour, and cut sections to try for each.
Shredded ulu for pancakes and hashbrowns, sliced ulu for frying in some coconut oil…
Ulu fries? Kickass!!!
Ulu hashbrowns? Yes!!
Ulu pancakes?...not quite there yet...more on that one later…
Hmmm...cooked ulu is actually pretty cool after all! If you're not a stickler for the raw fruity diet, ulu gives you some amazing options to still have all the joys of a root vegetable, but in a glorious fruit form that hangs lovingly from a tree, offered freely by the plant, instead of having to be slaughtered like the poor unfortunate tuber.
If one were so bold, I'd be willing to wager a fully deep fried ulu is superior to the spud. It's nice to have a fruity option to continue one’s love affair with the french fry...and with a little tomato-avocado/cider vinegar concoction on the side fer dippin’, the fruity extravaganza was complete!
So far ulu has rocked our world!
Enter the ripened ulu…
After waiting a few short days, our ulu began to soften rapidly. It became a sack of mush. Time to sample! Our conclusion?
The soft gooey innards of the magnificent ulu had lived up to the hype! Awesome! And this wasn’t even fully tree ripened. Imagine when fed fully with all the sugars from the tree! Joy overload!
We collected as many ulu as we could from neighbouring farms and found some in the wild.
Discussing ulu at market, a gentleman suggested using the ripe ulu as a base for pancakes, not the hard stuff. Brilliant!
And thicken with what? What else, ulu flour! Woohoo!
We tried it the next time we got hold of a ripe ulu, and the pancakes didn't disappoint.
Ulu...superfood of the new millennium?? My vote is yesssss!!!!
Awesome in smoothies too!
If every second person had an ulu tree in their front yard, the sham of world hunger would be eradicated.
Nature provides it all for us...offering freely from the arms of the loving trees without any need for the killing of any animal or plant.
Ulu, you rock!!
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