The pleasures of the papaya.

• Author: Olaya, Clara Ines
• Position: FOOD

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In this land of the Americas, for the pleasure and health of humankind, God created a fruit that is the very light of the sun transformed into juice, pulp, and sweetness. There is no more exquisite taste to the palate than a slice of fresh papaya when it melts in the mouth and slides down the throat.

God also made it good because in his infinite laboratory of wisdom, he made a fruit that is also a perfect natural medicine. The papaya has more vitamin C than an orange, large amounts of vitamin A, and a substance coursing through the plant that--due to its innumerable practical and medicinal uses--is almost miraculous. It is called papain.

The origin of the papaya tree is lost in the fog of history, but experts say that it was born on the sunny, rainy volcanic slopes of Central America--the area that today ranges from southern Mexico to Nicaragua. Thanks to the ease with which its seeds travel and the speed at which the plants produce fruit, the papaya spread through the warm mountains and valleys of South America. A thousand years before the arrival of the Spanish, the papaya tree was extensively cultivated and appreciated in Peru. Among the vestiges of the Chimu and Nazca cultures, mud vessels have been found with representations of the papaya.

The papaya tree was one species of American flora that astonished the Spanish because of its "beauteous deformity." That skinny stick of a tree, laden with enormous fruits and topped with a great crown of palm leaves, was seen by the conquerors and chroniclers in mountains and rainforests, and was found carefully cultivated near settlements or dwellings in indigenous villages.

The fruit of this tree had many names, such as the chichioalxochitl (flower of the breasts); sarumaxi in the Rebona language; wati-oje in Coreguaje; and kwar-kwat in the Cuna tongue. In Cuba, they call it fruta bomba (fruit bomb), because in popular lingo, "papaya" refers to the female sexual organs. In the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela they call it lechosa; in Mexico, melon sapote or melon papaya; in Brazil, mamao. Years later, when Carl Linnaeus classified plants botanically, he gave it the scientific name of Carica papaya.

The black, shiny seeds of Carica papaya have an extraordinary explosive vitality. Just a few weeks after making contact with warm, humid soil, two little palm leaves burst forth, seeking the sunlight. As the plant grows, it lets its first leaves fall, and in the...