Papaya

Carica papaya · Tropical fruit

40 pairings

The papaya (Carica papaya), known as pawpaw across much of the tropics and as fruta bomba in Cuba, is the large, melon-like berry of a fast-growing giant herb native to Central America. Ripe, its musky-sweet orange-to-salmon flesh is scooped from a hollow centre packed with peppery black seeds and eaten fresh with a squeeze of lime; hard and green, the same fruit is shredded raw into the sour-hot Southeast Asian salad som tam. It also gives the world papain, the protein-digesting enzyme used to tenderise meat.

Picking a good onedrag

Hard, green, days to goSlumping, sour, weeping

Part yellowThree to six days on the counter. Cuts into clean cubes but eats flat and faintly bitter until the gold spreads.Buy it

SkinHalf yellow, green shoulders

GiveGives at the blossom end only

Stem scarScar dry, edges browning

SmellFaint sweet musk at the tip

Reading a just ripe one. Move the slider and the rest of this page — nutrition, pairings — re-scores with it.

What one gives you

62%

Usable yield

310 g flesh · skin and seeds out

500 g

Typical weight

one specimen

Keeping ittap a band

Below about 7 °C the skin scalds, the flesh water-soaks and hard lumps set around the veins. Only fully ripe fruit takes a cold fridge, and only for a few days.

Humidity

90-95%

Damp air, but never mist it: water sitting on yellowing skin lets anthracnose in. Lose 8% of its weight and the skin turns rubbery and dull.

Airflow

Loose and uncovered

Leave it uncovered and stack no more than two or three deep. Green skin bruises easily, and the marks surface later as sunken green patches on the ripe fruit.

Answers to it, and gives it off

A banana in a paper bag brings it on faster and more evenly. Ripening fruit gives off plenty itself, so keep it clear of greens and anything you want held back.

Preparing