A MEXICAN FRUIT STORY
A rule to live by: every time you see something new, break it open and taste it. Within reason though, use your judgement, ok? This is what I did when I was in Oaxaca City in November 2018. For a month I walked the streets and slipped through the markets asking in my new unsure Spanish, "what is this?" I was in Mexico accompanying my husband who was doing a natural pigment silk screen residency outside the city. After one week together, he left to boil plants and insects and I stayed in Oaxaca to explore.
Just like in Sri Lanka I was taken with the colors and diversity of the fruit. Some looked familiar, the Chico Zapote was a Sapodilla, the Maracuya a Passion Fruit. Some look alien, the Mamey was like if a sweet potato became a fruit, the Granada China you could crack open like an egg and suck out it's slimy seeds - this became my all time favorite. The Nispero was somewhere between a cherry and a plum...but growing like a grape. Then there is the Tuna fruit, having nothing to do with the fish, it is the prickly pear cactus fruit, tough on the outside, but like a cucumber-watermelon in the flavor-texture. Perhaps the most distinct in the I've-never-had-anything-like-this-before and the most specific to Mexico is the Zapote Negro. A species of persimmon, that when ripe, you dig into it with your spoon and are rewarded with a velvety smooth prune-sweet bite. The tiny apple looking Tejocate I recognized as being the golden offering overflowing on the offrendas during my first week amidst the Dia de Meurtos celebrations.
To say that Oaxaca was inspiring is an understatement. It is not an unbeaten path, but while lived there with a young mother, her 4 year old son, two dogs, and an elusive cat, I was sated. We shopped in the markets, I took notes while we cooked together, illustrated recipes and drew chiles, fruit, food, drinks so that I could could better remember them, and I practiced Spanish - of which I now have a ridiculously small and specific culinary vocabulary.
So here are the fruits of Mexico that stole my heart.
Just like in Sri Lanka I was taken with the colors and diversity of the fruit. Some looked familiar, the Chico Zapote was a Sapodilla, the Maracuya a Passion Fruit. Some look alien, the Mamey was like if a sweet potato became a fruit, the Granada China you could crack open like an egg and suck out it's slimy seeds - this became my all time favorite. The Nispero was somewhere between a cherry and a plum...but growing like a grape. Then there is the Tuna fruit, having nothing to do with the fish, it is the prickly pear cactus fruit, tough on the outside, but like a cucumber-watermelon in the flavor-texture. Perhaps the most distinct in the I've-never-had-anything-like-this-before and the most specific to Mexico is the Zapote Negro. A species of persimmon, that when ripe, you dig into it with your spoon and are rewarded with a velvety smooth prune-sweet bite. The tiny apple looking Tejocate I recognized as being the golden offering overflowing on the offrendas during my first week amidst the Dia de Meurtos celebrations.
To say that Oaxaca was inspiring is an understatement. It is not an unbeaten path, but while lived there with a young mother, her 4 year old son, two dogs, and an elusive cat, I was sated. We shopped in the markets, I took notes while we cooked together, illustrated recipes and drew chiles, fruit, food, drinks so that I could could better remember them, and I practiced Spanish - of which I now have a ridiculously small and specific culinary vocabulary.
So here are the fruits of Mexico that stole my heart.