fruit · The Trophy Room
Papaya
The breakfast fruit of the tropics — a big golden-fleshed melon-on-a-tree, sweet and buttery ripe, or shredded green into the famous tart-spicy salad. A papaya tree fruits within a year of sprouting, so they turn up in every yard and roadside across the warm world.
Identifying
- pear-to-cylinder shaped, green ripening to orange-yellow skin
- deep orange, soft, custardy flesh around a central cavity of round black seeds
- the peppery black seeds are edible and famously used as a mock pepper
- mild, musky-sweet aroma when ripe; still firm and green for savory salad
Facts
- contains papain, an enzyme that tenderizes meat and digests protein — green papaya is a natural marinade
- the plant races from seed to fruiting in under a year, unusual for a tree
- ripe it's a sweet dessert; green and shredded it's the backbone of Southeast Asian som tam salad
