A pitaya reunion

I would like you to meet a fruit of legendary proportions in the Reed family known as the pitaya. I bet that it's one of the weirder edible creations of nature that you've seen in life. And after an entire decade, the Reed family has been reunited with the celebrated pitaya. 

Ten years ago, in August 2001, we moved to Merida, Mexico for about 6 months. In my 15-year-old brain, my parents were crazy and doing this on a whim. (Their reasons: because they wanted their kids to learn Spanish, because it would be a good experience, and because they could). It was really hard to be uprooted from the midst of life as I knew it. 

As you can expect, there was a lot of culture shock when we first moved there. We didn't understand much of what was said, we slept in hammocks, it was hot and humid as heck, we had to wear uniforms to school, we were in a city built by the Conquistadores, we were stared at everywhere, etc. etc. etc. You get the picture. Figuring out food was a whole new predicament. That's when the pitaya came in. 

Pitaya has a texture a lot like kiwi, especially with all those black, kiwi-like seeds. but its taste is much different - more like a melon. It's hard to explain. You eat it by slicing it in half and eating the white part with a spoon.

Pitaya are in season in the summertime, and in August they are finishing their fruit. It looks pretty strange, but we tried it, and we all loved it. We ate it nonstop.

In a way, pitaya fruit represents that initial transition for our family in Mexico and how we grew to love Merida and its people.

As many of you know, Neil has a passion and obsession with exotic fruit that could have very well stemmed from our Mexico experience.   He loves tasting about them, learning about them and it sometimes seems like he has an encyclopedic knowledge of all sorts of exotic fruit. He often brings it home to my family to try and sometimes only the bravest of us do.

So when he told me last week that he was coming home but had to make a stop somewhere to see if he could find something first (don't you love how vague that is?) I told him not to ... unless it was pitaya.

Let me tell you, after 10 years that's a pretty sweet "egg" to find in your Easter basket.

It wasn't as sweet, being imported, as I remember, but it was so good to eat it again. I swear only Neil, Shawn and I along with my parents understand the significance of the moment.

I have to conclude with the classic picture that Neil takes with just about every piece of exotic fruit: