Strange Fruit The papaya was unknown to me for many years. I came from a meat-and-potatoes family which only offered canned pears, peaches and pineapples. Avocados were thought to be risque in those days, and my father still believed that tomatoes were poisonous. However one member of our family was a renegade. Aunt Dolly was a nurse who traveled the high seas and brought back papaya seeds from Hawaii. Consequently, her floors and end tables were full of potted seedlings who wondered why they weren't growing in the tropical zone like their ancestors of the CARICA PAPAYA family. Auntie definitely had a crush on papayas. She was seen loitering in the produce section at Safeway, waiting for the banana boat stock. Perhaps there would be a fresh pineapple, or a PAPAYA! Auntie tried to share her new found love with us Stateside people, but we just couldn't appreciate that foreign food. That Fall, I went away to a college that served the Presbyterian diet of home...canned pears, peaches and pineapples. I began to wonder if there wasn't more to life so I enrolled in the course, Nutrition 200. At first, the class was introduced to the wonders of Vitamin C. I took copious notes and to this day I see that first page: Vitamin C is one of the most reactive of vitamins and one of the most versatile in the body, and one of the most unstable in food. In the body, it acts as a transporter of hydrogen, taking it on and giving it up in many metabolic reactions. It is especially important in the formation of collagen, an essential constituent of the connective tissue which cements our body cells together. The bone and teeth continually need vitamin C to repair connective tissue, and without well-formed collagen, cuts and burns cannot heal. Vitamin C added to food prevents scurvy, a deficiency disease suffered by 18th century sailors. The vitamin is called antiscorbic (antiscurvy) factor, from which name ascorbic acid is derived. Sources of Vitamin C - Adult required daily amount RDA is 45mgs. found in a small orange. Guavas have 240 mgs, and papayas have 170 mgs. My pencil fell to the floor. Here was that forgotten fruit, and here's scientific evidence that it is nutritious! As I picked up my pencil, I mused on this wonderful source of Vitamin C that I had spurned as STRANGE. However, this esoteric knowledge faded into the background of my mind as other knowledge was pushed forward. Marriage followed and subsequently, the agony and ecstasy of children. In an agony cycle, I remembered my adventurous aunt, and followed her example by flying to Hawaii for a cycle of ecstasy. There I renewed my acquaintance with fruit, having tired of people, ('specially small ones). Fresh pineapples appeared for breakfast, fresh mangoes for lunch, and the fruit that contained 170 mgs. of Vitamin C presented itself for dinner. I had learned of its nutritional value, now I would give it the taste test. Mmmm...Mmmm....sweet...with an agreeable musky tang. "I like it," I said to no one in particular as I gathered up its little black seeds in a plastic bag. Now I wanted to know more about the papaya so I opened my newly purchased booklet on "Succulent Fruits of the Tropics and Subtropics." Let's see, Kiwi...Mango...PAPAYA. "CARICA PAPAYA is a large plant rather than a tree since its palm-like trunk, though up to 25 feet tall, is not so woody as a typical tree. Papaya usually grows from seed, the fruit developing rapidly by the end of the first year. Under good circumstances the plant may last 5 years. The plant develops no lateral branches but is crowned with deeply lobed leaves, sometimes two feet across borne on hollow petrotes two feet long. Fruit is commonly spherical or cylindrical in form, three to twenty inches or more in length, sometimes weighing as much as 20-25 pounds. The very juicy flesh is deep yellow, orange or salmon-coloured, and about an inch thick. Along the walls of the large central cavity are attached the numerous round, wrinkled, black seeds the size of peas." Then my eyes caught the subtitle, "Other Uses for the Papaya," and my interest grew. Continuing... "The unripe fruit, as well as other parts of the plant, contains a milky juice, in which is present a protein -- a digesting enzyme known as papain, which has a digestive action. It is usually obtained by scarifying green fruits while they are still on the plant. After the juice exudes and coagulates, it is scraped off and dried to be used in preparation of various remedies for indigestion and in the manufacture of meat tenderizers. In the tropics, tough chicken or other meat is wrapped in papaya leaves overnight before cooking, or even rubbed with the juice of the papaya to render them more tender." When I said "Aloha" to Hawaii, little did I dream that within another year I would be saying, "Oh Kusheo" (Hello) to Africa where I had enlisted in the Peace Corps. There I found the same flowering trees, exotic plants and tropical fruits that flourished in Hawaii. As soon as I learned to bargain in the local tribal tongue of Mende I headed for the papaya concession at the outside market, and won a football-sized prize for 40 cents! As I cradled in my arms my very own papaya (or paw paw as they are called in Africa), a spirit of adventure and anticipation urged me on. I was to experience the papaya beyond taste or text, beyond words and thoughts. Tenderly laying its body on the kitchen table, I reached for my Swiss army knife and sliced off its top. As I peered inside, a feeling came over me that I had interrupted a sacred process. I was seeing the womb of creation en vivo. Time stopped and a living hush filled the air. The myriad moist brown seeds were waiting on their slender peach-coloured stems, suspended...glistening and twinkling...alert...poised for liberation to the outside world. I 'saw' the invisible Life behind the forms and heard the pregnant silence. Be still, and know that I am God. That kind of silence. Like the pause before the last glorious chord of the Hallelujah Chorus.... My reverie was broken by little black hands appearing through the barred windows and smiling eyes saying Please, so I shared my moment of joy in a tangible way by placing juicy pieces in the waiting palms of Mohammed, Jo-Jo, Esther and Isatu. Then I sprinkled the lively seeds on fertile soil to produce an hundred fold. Thus, this strange fruit had revealed her hidden charms to me, even to giving me a glimpse of the Cause behind all manifestations. Back for more humor