Mrs. Papaya reigned when oranges, cashews, custard apples and soursop disappeared
14ymedio, Natalia Lopez Moya, Havana, 29 September 2024 — The frutabomba, the most voluptuous of the fruits consumed in Cuban homes has, for decades, also been the ingredient of the most popular desserts and milkshakes when there is a shortage of milk for a good flan or the exclusive mamey disappears from the markets. Painted in paintings and recreated in engravings, in recent years it has ceased to be a product within everyone’s reach.
Also known as ‘papaya’, a moniker commonly used by Cubans to designate the vulva, it has the advantage of being large but the problem of being fragile when transported when ripe. Huge and delicate, it is most often sold whole in markets but can also be purchased in portions that must be swallowed in a short time before they spoil.
Now, a pound of frutabomba is sold for 60 pesos in the market at 19th and B in El Vedado, Havana. A single specimen can weigh quite a bit, so with less than 300 pesos it is unlikely that you will be able to walk away with one of these fruits in your bag, and trying to buy a small portion, for just one person, can be as difficult as convincing a vendor in the downtown store to sell half a head of garlic or just a couple of lettuce leaves.
While other products have doubled or tripled in price in recent months, the price of frutabomba has remained stable throughout 2024, although in November of last year it reached 70 pesos per pound. But even without significant jumps, the fruit has also been the victim of inflation that has pushed it out of the pockets of many Cubans. Its rise began at the beginning of this century, when it began to replace other fruits that were in short supply at that time.
In the absence of oranges, Mrs. Papaya came out on top. In the absence of cashews, sugar apples, custard apples and soursops, their plump appearance and small seeds replaced a long list of delicacies that once sprouted from the branches of so many trees throughout the country. Easy to harvest, with a medium-sized plant but high productivity and without great demands to be transported in its green state, it was the perfect food for the state-owned Acopio to fill figures and organize agricultural fairs.
But people wanted them ripe, ready to be cut into pieces and devoured. That’s where popular ingenuity came into play. They discovered that if a green specimen was dipped in a formula based on nitrogen fertilizers, it quickly acquired a beautiful color that made customers salivate and pushed them to reach into their wallets. When they got home and cut open the beautiful frutabomba, they found a whitish and tasteless interior.
Hence the need to see the inside of the fruit before buying it. A small triangle cut with a skillful knife allowed the inside to be seen. “Yes, I’ll take it,” sealed the deal with the buyer, relieved to know in advance that it was not one of those “hastily ripened” frutabombas. But with popular tricks you never know, over time the “ripening accelerators” have become more difficult to detect.
A frutabomba dessert, made with green or multi-colored pieces, has saved dessert for countless families
For its part, candied frutabomba, made with pieces of green or multicolored fruit, has saved dessert for countless Cuban families for decades. Easy to make, without complicated ingredients, the syrupy recipe has, however, come up against the lack of sugar in the country that was once mistaken for a sugar mill, beating to the rhythm of the machinery of a sugar mill, and the sound of the cutting of the canes in the sugarcane fields.
The stability of the price of frutabomba in recent months is due more to the loss of the ingredients and contexts that enhance it than to the ups and downs of the market. Given the lack of sugar and tourists, the most sensual of fruits does not rise as much as other products, but neither does it fall from the heights to which it has risen. However, it can still be seen in hotel buffets and in the paintings that tourists buy in souvenir markets.
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