I was going to wait until Friday, but... I'll let the answer be known.

The Breadfruit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadfruit
James Cook: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook
Botany Bay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botany_Bay

The common thread is

Sir Joseph Banks - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Banks

Sir Joseph Banks sailed with Captain Cook on his first voyage through
the Tahitian Isles, which became 'discoveries' of the English - where
the breadfruit was tasted, and made an impression - and as a botanist,
he appreciated the many plants in this region of the world. Botany Bay,
formerly Stingray Bay, was named by Sir Joseph Banks himself.

Which doesn't really say much. But there's a story here, and one that
many people may be familiar with. It deals with the most famous sea
story, dealing with a mutiny on board one of the King of England's ships
- and a Captain who, in a boat with less than 7 inches of wood
separating he and his crew, sailed a journey which made Naval history
throughout the world.

The ship? His Majesty's Ship, the Bounty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bounty
The mission? Bring breadfruit to the Caribbean; Jamaica.

The first attempt failed - but the same Captain, who made it home to
England from Tahiti at great personal cost, is none other than Captain
Bligh:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bligh

He was later sent back to Tahiti - 'Otaheite' - to do the same, which
showed a great deal of trust from the Admiralty - and Sir Joseph Banks
himself, for he selected then Lieutenant Bligh for the command. He
successfully made the second journey.

So now... why would a man do this, why would he simply send Breadfruit
to the Caribbean? Was this a fickle thing? No, it was a matter of
logistics. Slaves needed to eat. So while Africans were transplanted
from Africa, the foods - not just breadfruit - were brought from the
Polynesian Islands. How's THAT for diversity?

A few personal notes: I embarked on all of this a year ago, because one
of my Great Uncles had a question. He asked me to find out why an estate
in Trinidad and Tobago was named 'Otaheite Estate', since it was not a
word of Hindi, Amerindian or any other local language. So I used Google,
and found out Otaheite being one of the Tahitian islands, and about the
breadfruit. But more digging got me into the fact that there is no
record of any breadfruit actually being in Otaheite Estate - in fact, it
remained largely undeveloped. The records of ownership are lost previous
to Trinidad and Tobago's Red House burned down in the early 1900s (1904?).

It's been an interesting journey through a history that I otherwise
would have known nothing about. My conclusion, at this point, is that
some fanciful Englishman owned the property and simply named it
'Otaheite Estate'. And the reason for that is - the story of the Mutiny
of the Bounty, the seductive Polynesian women, the simple life - even
then, it called to people, and many works were immediately published -
some fanciful, some not. Even Wordsworth wrote a poem related to this
(the name presently escapes me).

And the story itself awakened in a time in England when personal liberty
was becoming more popular than 'duty to the King' - and fanned the
flames even as the French Revolution happened. Anyone ever hear of the
United States?

And then, because of the actions of mainly Haiti and the United States
(after Haiti), slavery became abolished.

When we eat a breadfruit, we eat part of our local history. But when we
bite it, we also take a bite out of world history. Imagine a simple
breadfruit in Otaheite, eaten by James Cook and Joseph Banks, caused and
inflamed so much.

Salute the breadfruit before you bite it. It fed those chained, and
helped gain liberty. Subversive fruit, isn't it? Of course, it too was
born in Freedom.

To add to this - the book I was reading in my room at CARDICIS was: 'The
Bounty -- the True Story of the Mutiny of the Bounty", by Caroline
Alexander (ISBN 014200469).
Another level. Odd how that happened.

I'm off to find a breadfruit.

-- 
Taran Rampersad
cnd@knowprose.com
http://www.linuxgazette.com
http://www.a42.com
http://www.worldchanging.com
http://www.knowprose.com
http://www.easylum.net
"Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to 
build upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less."— Lawrence Lessig