Today is brought to you by the fruit: pitaya
To come clean, today was not the first time I tried a pitaya. I think I tried a pitaya once in Okinawa, though it could have been once in Tokyo when my friend's grandmother shipped her a box of pineapple and mango from Okinawa. I do remember thinking at first that it was a rice ball with black sesame seeds - that's how it looked, a white, ball-shaped fruit speckled with black seeds.
And I'm certain I tried a pitaya in June 2005, my first time to Mexico. It was the end of the season, though, and the pickings were slim.
Now, though, pitaya season is just getting started here, and yesterday marked our first sampling of the fruit. They're an excellent delight, and a way to pass the time until the mangoes and avocados finish ripening.
Pitayas are spiky fruits that grow on cacti, and are native to Mexico (and may grow in Okinawa too...?).
The inside flesh looks like a brain, or intestines, or noodles, or something weird like that. It's all squirrely. They also come in all colors: white, red, pink, orange, yellow.
They're pretty tasty. They're not too sweet, but very fresh tasting. Quite refreshing in this heat we're experiencing. And the texture is not at all offensive. Because they're soft, one doesn't really notice the funny squiggliness.
They are, actually, much tastier than mamey. If one were to compose a fruit graph, say, the pitaya would be slightly more difficult to eat, on account of the spikes, but much higher up on the tasty scale.
On my fruit graph, pitayas fall between seeded grapes and peaches. Mamey, however, is easier to eat than grapefruit, but about as not tasty.
This graph, is adapted from http://xkcd.com/388/ on the site http://ealingwoodcraft.org.uk/fruit/index.php
You can disagree with my fruit assessments, sure, but you'll be mistaken.
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