Papaya

Recently I was snacking at a friend's house. It was actually a meeting of some importance, but in my part of the world, no business is done without refreshments being served.
I was taken aback while picking my way through a colourful salad of fresh fruit. What took me aback was a gold-coloured morsel with a sweet and musky flavour that I could not place. I interrupted the proceedings to ask the chair what this was on the end of my toothpick.
"Why, papaya," she said. Papaya it was, and I was happy to welcome papaya back into my life. I'm not sure at all why it dropped out. I had not choked on a papaya pit, I had not been poisoned by papaya-borne e-coli, I had not been pelted with overripe papayas at a political meeting. Papayas had simply dropped out of sight.
And I think if, prior to my epiphany with the toothpick, someone had asked me if I had encountered any good papayas lately, I would have arched my eyebrows and asked back, "Papayas? Are they still around?"
So, the next time I was in the produce section, I searched diligently for papayas. I found two kinds of mango, two kinds of avocado, lightly freckled bananas, pineapples, a dozen or so variations on the theme of orange and a single coconut.
And yes, there were papayas. I didn't recognize them at first because they were so big, but from what I have read on the subject since, they were in fact dwarfish.
Some varieties of papaya can weigh as much as 10 kilograms. You'd need a two-handed saw to slice them. Mine weighed only 650 grams or so. It had a mottled green and yellow skin, and a sticker that read "Hawaii tree-ripenedSuper Foods Inc."
No instructions, but I knew what to do. I put it on a cutting board, and using a big, serrated knife sliced it all the way through from top to bottom. The two halves separated and lay there, exposing lots of small, black seeds just waiting to be scooped out.
"Nice," I thought, and I continued thinking it as I removed the seeds, replaced them with yogurt and ate the whole half with a spoon.
Compare this co-operative behaviour on the part of the papaya with the kind of mano-a-mano struggle that it takes to subdue other tropical fruit. Mangoes, for example. Even with a clever cookie-cutter device and operating in the sink, I get sticky juice up to my elbows.
And pineapples! It takes 20 minutes to isolate the edible part or a pineapple and you throw away half of what you paid for.
Papaya tastes nice, it smells nice and it has a nice texture. It is also, reputedly, nice to your insides. One thing it is famous for is a broad offering of enzymes that help in the digestion of proteins. Papain, in particular, is extracted and used as a meat tenderizer and as a treatment for digestive upsets.

Actually, you don't have to eat the fruit to get the tenderizing effect. In places where papaya plants grow, the leaves -they are huge -are simply wrapped around tough meats and left overnight. Next morning, a steak you could eat with a spoon! Perhaps.
The papaya would be even nicer if I could grow it in my backyard, but alas, it thrives only in tropical and subtropical climates. A native of central America, it has found many new homes, but only where the sun shines long and hot. The closest source for us in Lotusland seems to be Hawaii.
And I found out something especially nice -you can dance to the papaya. Google "papaya dance" and you'll find many videos. If you like the Macarena, you'll go bonkers over the Papaya. I particularly recommend a disciplined performance on video by a unit of the Philippines army.