THE PAPAYA STORY
The papaya or pawpaw where I live has been around much longer than commonly believed. It’s native to Central America from where Spanish & Portuguese explorers took them to India and the Philippines .The famous botanist Linneaus named it in 1753.
Papaya came to the US in the 1920’s and is now cultivated in Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
Like the banana, papaya can be eaten in a variety of ways. Most of us know the orange fruit with a soft interior containing black seeds. The seeds are generally scooped out & discarded but they can be used as a spice, a bit like peppercorns; the ripe fruit can be eaten as is or cut into small slices and used as a garnish for meat of fish dishes; the green fruit (a bit difficult to obtain in the continental US) can be used as a meat tenderizer in stews – just cut into small pieces and cooked with the meat; it can be grated and used in salads.
In addition to being delicious to eat, papaya, like banana, has a number of medicinal uses. A few examples:
Papaya leaves brewed as a tea is used as an antimalarial agent; a paste made from fermented papaya is used to aid healing for rashes, burns and cuts.
For more information, here are some web sites to visit:
Hope you’ll buy and enjoy a papaya. I welcome your feedback!
