Breadfruit, water coconuts - not for sale

You may already know that Sam and I are frequent consumers of fresh coconut water. Especially since, in the Washington area, they have become available in neat, trimmed and wrapped form, most of the husk cut off, ready to be opened with one well-directed cut of a butcher knife. The water is delicious, amazingly soothing, just sweet enough, and it's good for you! A natural sports drink, and more: "It's a natural isotonic beverage, with the same level of electrolytic balance as we have in our blood. It's the fluid of life, so to speak." In fact, during the Pacific War of 1941-45, both sides in the conflict regularly used coconut water - siphoned directly from the nut - to give emergency plasma transfusions to wounded soldiers. http://www.fao.org/AG/magazine/9810/spot3.htm There are coconut trees growing all over Kinshasa, so we figured we'd be able to find young coconuts in the markets. No deal. Zilch. Nada. We've toured every inch of the humongous and nightmarish "Grand Marché" with no result. Even explaining what we were looking for was difficult, and after an hour's search, someone triumphantly brought us dried coconuts. Apparently, even the mature coconuts are not a staple here. Same story with the breadfruit: I've located at least three lovely trees in my neighborhood, all laden with fruit in different stages of maturity. Nothing in the markets. Our cook didn't understand what we were talking about, either. Finally, we asked the lady who sells rather nice produce in a stand near the French embassy, who seemed to understand our French rather better than the average fruit stand owner, about the coconuts and the breadfruit. On the coconuts, she said she'd get some, and we should return Tuesday. I'll let you know what happened tomorrow. It took a while to describe the breadfruit, apparently not known as "Fruit à pain" here. A few days ago I pointed out a tree to one of the drivers, and he said, oh yes, we eat that sometimes; but he couldn't remember what it was called. When you don't know the name of a food, I think it means you hardly ever eat it. So it took a while for the produce lady near the French embassy to understand what we were talking about. When she did, she said, "Ah, ce qu'on mange chez les Pères, dans les couvents!" (What they eat where the priests live, in the convents). Yes, breadfruit is one of those strange foods eaten only by foreigners, a European import! The tropical equivalent of Benedictine...? She said she'd try to find some of that, too.