Adventures in Papaya

I was always intimidated by papayas in the grocery store -- they were usually sitting all by themselves, apart from the well-known apples and oranges, looking very green and somewhat forlorn. Not being sure what to do with them, I carefully avoided them.

Thanks to neighbor, Bob, I have now dramatically changed my mind. (He and his wife, Laurie, live across the street from us and besides being the resident naturalist, he works with Vince.) Bob has a couple of papaya trees in his back yard, and a few weeks ago, he came to our door with two of the aforementioned green things, and proudly presented them to me. I took them (not even being sure what they were at first), thanked him, and wondered, now what do I do?


So, when all else fails, my motto is to consult the Internet, and after some research, I decided they needed to ripen first.

After a few days on the counter, the dark green turned to a pleasing, soft yellow.



I wielded the knife, slashed the ripest one open with abandon, and inside was the most luscious color of orange. I scooped out the seeds -- it didn't have the full complement of seeds, because the fruit was not at its full maturity. However, even not being as large as it could have been, it was....... how can I describe it? AMBROSIA! I honestly couldn't believe how amazing it tasted.

I am now hooked on papayas, and Bob brings them over to us when he can get to them before the fruit bats devour them.






Our four-plex of concrete villas is flanked by mango trees, which have been in full bloom for several weeks. Now, I am familiar with mangos (why would I buy mangos and not papayas?) and am eagerly looking forward to these beauties. Rumor has it that mangos are also popular with the fruit bats and banana rats -- these little guys can climb trees -- along with the resident Filipinos who also climb trees by bringing ladders at night and stripping the trees of the fruit....(or so they say.)

I've been puzzled why there isn't a fruit orchard here on base. As mentioned here, we do see papaya and mango trees, along with banana and plantain trees scattered among yards. It just seems there would be a huge demand for fruit that could be grown and harvested right here -- instead we see all of these same fruits in the Nex and they are shipped in from Florida.

Mango blossoms -- if you look closely (double-click on photo to enlarge) you can see the baby mangos forming from the blossoms.

Stay tuned for a later report on "Mango fandango" (I couldn't think of anything to rhyme with papaya, so I settled for "adventures.")