Did you
know?
Having come
a full year around the calendar with birth month flowers, this month I thought
I would make a short plug for a relatively new fruit to the global cuisine.
We don’t
usually associate the Cactus family with food provisions, but the pitaya, is a notable exception. Popular in
Asia, from China to Thailand and probably further, the fruit is actually a
North American native. Pitaya or dragon fruit is native to the arid regions of
Mexico and further south, and introduced to Asia by the Europeans who brought
it back from the New World. This climbing cactus flowers at night.
In our
supermarkets we generally have the white-fleshed Hylocereus undatus, or
White-fleshed Pitaya. It is delicious and refreshing, although some may call it
bland. With its crunchy dark seeds it reminds me of a kiwi fruit in appearance
with the mild watery sweetness of a melon. Wonderful addition to a smoothy,
they are also quite fine peeled and scooped from red flaky rind that surrounds
the edible pulp.
In other
places there is a red-fleshed pitaya, native to Costa Rica which has been
called pitaya dulce and the Yellow Pitaya which is actually white within,
yellow on the outside.
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