Post #536500 by jackceol on Tue, Jun 15, 2010 2:38 PM

Hey guys! I'm a newcomer to the forum, hope you don't mind if I chime in. I was born and raised in Hawaii but have lived in NYC since '95. It's a drag breadfruit is so hard to come by in California, here in New York you can go to lots of West Indian markets and get a fresh green one. The Hawaiians, unlike the rest of Polynesia preferred them ripe (yellow, sweet and soft) rather than green. The Asian lady who sold me my last one considered this "rotten", though I have fond memories of my dad mashing up a ripe one and frying it up like a pancake. Yummers! I guess ripe would make more sense for okolehao, since the sugar content would be much higher.
As far as Ti, in Hawaii they're all over the place, but I guess agriculture would give you a hell of a time trying to bring any back fresh to a place like California. I actually have one growing right behind me in my Queens apartment. They do amazingly well indoors. You can buy root cuttings cheap at the Honolulu airport, and they actually grow! Gotta soak the cutting in water for a few weeks/months (change is every so often so the water doesn't get nasty). Then it will start putting out roots like an alien. When those look reliable, stick 'um in some soil (mine is in a pot)and water it every so often. If you don't have cold winters, it'll probably grow really fast.
Good luck with that, don't know how badly you want to try okolehao. I used to see bottles of it for sale @ Ala Moana Long's until the late '80s or so. Most folks I asked about it told me it was nasty stuff, but maybe it was just a cheap reproduction. Aloha, Jack