Breadfruit

Breadfruit fried in thin slices is a favourite Maldivian snack – bambukeyo chips.

An evergreen tree of the mulberry family growing to 15–20 m, with large, deeply lobed, glossy leaves and white, milky sap. The round, melon-sized fruits have a green, knobbly skin and starchy, creamy flesh that tastes rather like bread or potatoes once baked or boiled. A single tree can produce several hundred fruits a year. It originates in the islands of Oceania, from where people spread it throughout the tropics.

Significance in the country

In the Maldives bambukeyo is an important source of starch alongside rice – it is eaten boiled in curries, roasted, and as crunchy chips sold in every little shop.

Where it grows

Planted in home gardens on inhabited islands in every atoll, especially those with better soil, such as Fuvahmulah and Addu.

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