Day Ninety-Five: Papaya

Papaya (in today's case, Mexican papaya, the green-skinned variety) is one of those fruits that might be the sweetest thing available in some cuisines, but I find it...um...musky. Like armpit, actually. I do realize that it's possible that I've never had a ripe, in-season papaya (the papaya I ate today certainly wasn't at its peak) but I doubt that with a little aging, the entire musky smell of the thing disappears. Maybe I'm horribly, horribly wrong. I guess we'll see come summer.

Today, I had papaya two ways: raw, and (because it was less than delicious raw) as a granita (pulverized with lemon and sugar, then frozen). Of the two applications, I would have to say I preferred the granita. I would give you a recipe if I had followed any form, but basically I food processed half a papaya, added the juice of a lemon and... maybe a half cup of sugar? I eyeballed it. Sorry. After that, I popped it in a baking dish and into the freezer for about five hours, after which Ian broke it up with a fork and we ate it. It was a refreshing, mildly sweet dessert. More of a palate cleanser, really. Quite appropriate after the yellow curry I made for dinner.