Dulce de Fruta Bomba

Cuba's green papaya in a lime and cinnamon syrup, cooked until glassy and served cold with a slab of cream cheese

Origin: Havana & Cuba

From the journey of Papaya.

In Cuba the fruit is called fruta bomba, the bomb fruit, because papaya carries a coarse anatomical sense in Cuban Spanish that makes the word unusable in a shop. The evasion is old, thorough, and universally understood: ask for papaya in Havana and you will be corrected. Cuba also bred the papaya that most of the hemisphere now eats. The Maradol variety is credited to Adolfo Rodríguez Rivera, a self-taught breeder, and his wife María Luisa Nodal Ochoa, who selected it over a long stretch of years between 1938 and 1956; the name is their two names spliced together, Mar from María and adol from Adolfo. It travelled, and it now accounts for the overwhelming majority of Mexico's crop, which means that a Cuban husband and wife are responsible for the papaya on sale in most of North America. Dulce de fruta bomba en almíbar is the island's standard treatment of the unripe fruit, and it is a preserve as much as a pudding: the green flesh is cut into strips or batons, firmed in an alkaline soak, and simmered slowly in syrup with lime and cinnamon until it is translucent and holds a little chew. It is served cold in its syrup with a thick slice of cream cheese, the salt against the sugar, in the way Yucatán serves its candied papaya with Edam and Spain eats membrillo with cheese. The dish outlived the shortages of the Special Period because a papaya tree bears within a year of being planted and will keep bearing in a back yard.

Ingredients

Papaya

1.5 kg green (unripe) papaya, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1 cm batons
2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
2 l cold water

Syrup

800 g granulated sugar
600 ml water
2 cinnamon sticks
1 lime, peel removed in strips, then juiced
1 pinch salt

To Serve

200 g cream cheese, cut into thick slices

Method

Soak the papaya batons for an hour in the cold water with the bicarbonate of soda dissolved in it, then drain and rinse thoroughly.
Bring the sugar, water, cinnamon, lime peel, and salt to a simmer in a wide pan, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
Add the papaya and cook, uncovered, at the barest simmer for about an hour and a half, until the batons are translucent and the syrup coats a spoon.
Stir in the lime juice, take off the heat, and let the papaya cool completely in the syrup.
Chill and serve cold, two or three batons to a plate with their syrup and a slice of cream cheese.

Notes

The papaya must be properly green, with white seeds and no trace of orange in the flesh, or it will disintegrate. Some Cuban households cook the fruit in thick rounds instead of batons and serve one round per person.

The Gastrographer

Name: Dulce de Fruta Bomba
Prep time: 1 h 15 min
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Total time: 2 h 45 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: Havana & Cuba
Ingredients: 1.5 kg green (unripe) papaya, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1 cm batons; 2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda; 2 l cold water; 800 g granulated sugar; 600 ml water; 2 cinnamon sticks; 1 lime, peel removed in strips, then juiced; 1 pinch salt; 200 g cream cheese, cut into thick slices

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control