sweet passionfruit

sweet passionfruit,

sensuous on the outside,

sublime on the inside

I acquired a passion for passionfruit in Peru, where it is called granadilla. When I encounter this pile of delectable orange orbs at the Pisac feria, I am tempted to purchase the whole lot. Granadillas are the edible fruit of subtropical Andean passionflowers. The "passion" part of passionflowers refers to the passion of Jesus in Christian theology. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of the flower as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion. The Spanish name for the fruit, granadilla, is the diminutive of granada, pomegranate, which derives from Latin granatus, seedy, and both fruits certainly do contain many seeds. The ripe fruit is about the size and shape of a lemon. The orange-yellow rind is smooth, thin and brittle on the outside, white and soft on the inside. The pulp is whitish-yellow, mucilaginous, juicy, with a sprightly, aromatic flavor, and encloses numerous flat, black, tender seeds. The slimy pulp is very sweet, but don't think about what it might look like. You can cut the shell in half and eat the contents with a spoon. Or you can crack the shell with your fingernails and suck out the soft, moist, sticky mass.