Description
Breadnut is the spiny-fruited, seed-bearing wild ancestor of the breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), the plant from which seedless breadfruit was selectively bred over centuries. Both belong to the mulberry and fig family, Moraceae, and both share the genus Artocarpus. The key difference is what each is grown for: breadfruit for its starchy pulp, breadnut for its seeds.
The fruit is a round to oval head covered in short, fleshy spines, smaller and less dense than a breadfruit, with only a thin layer of edible flesh. What fills it are the seeds — anywhere from a dozen to 150 per fruit, each around 7–10 g, so that the fruit is mostly seed. Both the fruit and the seeds are edible only after cooking.
Because the name "breadnut" is shared across entirely different plants, it helps to be precise. The breadnut described here is Artocarpus camansi, grown across Southeast Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean. The same common name is also applied to Brosimum alicastrum, the Central American "maya nut" or ramón — a different genus within the same family. They are not interchangeable.
Origin & History
Breadnut is native to New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Maluku Islands, with a later introduction to the Philippines. It was one of the earliest members of the breadfruit lineage and travelled with Austronesian peoples as they spread across the Pacific; breadfruit itself is believed to be a domesticated, mostly seedless descendant bred from it.
Carried across the tropics in colonial times, breadnut became established especially across the Caribbean, where it is called chataigne in Trinidad and katahar in Guyana. In Sri Lanka it is known as kos del, distinguishing it from the common breadfruit, rata del.
The species name camansi literally comes from the fruit's Tagalog name kamansi, taken from the friar-botanist Francisco Manuel Blanco's 1837 description.
Uses
Culinary
- Seeds (the main food): Boiled or roasted, with a flavour frequently compared to chestnut; seeds can also be canned or processed into paste, butter, flour or oil
- Immature fruit: Usually eaten immature — thinly sliced and boiled in soups
- Ginataang kamansi: In the Philippines the young fruit is cooked in coconut milk with spices, alongside breadfruit and jackfruit
- Curries: In South Asia and the Caribbean, breadnut is commonly curried
Other Uses
The light wood is used for carving, and the tree's broad crown is useful for shade. Like the breadfruit, it carries a copious sticky white latex throughout.
Nutritional Benefits
The seed is the nutritional heart of the breadnut. One source describes it as having "high nutritive value but... an under-utilised food source." The seed is fairly high in carbohydrate, with higher levels of fat and protein than breadfruit flesh.
One analysis of mature breadnut seeds reports roughly 61% water, 26% carbohydrate, 4.9% protein and 3.5% fat, with about 1.2% fibre. Treat these as reference figures for the fresh seed; cooked kernels are the form actually eaten. As with chestnuts, the value of the seed lies in its nutrient density as a cooked food — a nourishing staple rather than a measured supplement.
How to Prepare
- Choose: Use mature seeds from soft, ripe fruit, or the immature fruit itself for cooking as a vegetable.
- Wash: Rinse seeds to remove any clinging pulp.
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Cook the seeds (never raw): Both fruit and seeds are eaten only after cooking.
- Boiling: Simmer the seeds in water until tender; they become soft and mealy
- Roasting: Roast in a dry pan or oven until the kernel softens and the flavour turns nutty
- Cook immature fruit: Peel and slice thinly, then boil or simmer until tender before adding to a curry or soup.
- Peel if preferred: The thin seed coat can be slipped off after cooking if a smoother texture is wanted.
Recipes
As Jungle Kitchen develops recipes featuring breadnut, those will be linked here.
Suggested applications: boiled breadnut seeds as a snack, breadnut and coconut-milk curry, roasted breadnut seeds, young breadnut simmered in soup.
Varieties
Breadnut is generally discussed as a single species, Artocarpus camansi, rather than through named cultivars. It is distinguished from the mostly seedless breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) by its spinier fruit and numerous seeds. Seed and fruit size vary considerably from tree to tree, which is part of why it is a wilder, less standardised crop than breadfruit.
Fun Facts
- Breadnut is the closest thing to a "wild breadfruit" — breadfruit was selected from it to drop most of its seeds.
- The species name camansi is borrowed from the Tagalog word for the fruit.
- "Breadnut" names two unrelated plants: this Asian-Pacific Artocarpus and the Central American Brosimum alicastrum, or maya nut.
- In Sri Lanka the pair is neatly sorted in one breath: rata del is breadfruit, kos del is breadnut.
- Its seeds taste like chestnuts — another plant it is unrelated to.