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My Conversion to Liking Breadfruit: “I’ve been ulu-cized!”

November 1, 2011 by Julia Flynn Siler 2 Comments

When I arrived at a garden near the town of Captain Cook, on the big island of Hawaii, to attend a Breadfruit Festival in late September, I was a skeptic.

Prize-winning breadfruit tart at the inaugural Breadfruit Festival: Photo by Julia Flynn Siler

Beforehand, I’d talked to one of the world’s leading experts, the Breadfruit Institute’s Director, Diane Ragone PhD., who had told me she hadn’t cared for it when she first tried it. I’d learned from the Breadfruit Institute’s own website about the difficulties faced by Captain Bligh in fulfilling his mission of introducing breadfruit plants to the Caribbean (during the infamous mutiny on the bounty, the mutineers tossed the trees overboard.) I’d even found a discussion on the gardening website GardenWeb under lists of the “five WORST tropical fruits,” with one writer pronouncing breadfruit “nauseous.”

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Filed Under: Ethnobotany, Food & Wine, Hawaii, The Writing Life, Uncategorized Tagged With: ethnobotany, food, Hawaii

Kava in South Kona

September 27, 2011 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

The 'Awa plant, also known as Kava

I caught a glimpse of the sign out of the corner of my eye: “Ma’s Nic Nats & Kava Stop.” I made a quick U-turn on the Mamalahao Highway in South Kona and headed back, pulling across from a laundromat where children chased each other outside as their parents waited for clothes to dry.

From the outside, the kava bar didn’t look like much. But it was starting to rain and I had another hour before I could check into my hotel room. So I climbed out of my car and walked in.

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Filed Under: Ethnobotany, Family Business, Food & Wine, Hawaii, Uncategorized

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