Colombia: Our Fruits, Our Memories
Most Colombian expats will agree that one of the greatest sacrifices we endure moving to another country, even one as bounteous and well-endowed as the USA, is the cornucopia of flavors, colors and aromas we leave behind when we board that plane to the American Dream. We feel somehow cheated by the absence of that rich saturation of the senses that we took for granted in the towns and villages of our tropical motherland (which even Bogotanos enjoy while on vacation en provincia).
Maracuyá
I myself, aside from dropping out of architecture school, have few greater regrets than to enjoy no more the musky, aromatic excess of fruits like the níspero and the pitahaya, or the tacky, salty grittiness of the chontaduro, which Panamanians (as those former Colombians are now called) call pifá. In fact, this little habit we have of calling things by different names, or using the same name to call different things, is a major communication problem among Latin American countries, and even regions within each country, as they were colonized by settlers from different parts of Spain, who christened each variety they encountered (as well as the indigenous or African deities they sought to “Christianize”) with the name of the European fruit or god they most resembled, without checking with each other. Wars break out for lesser issues—like “weapons of mass destruction."
Níspero
Thus “ciruela,” which in Spain is nothing more than the common plum, was adopted as the New World name of Spondias dulcis (so we can all agree at least on its taxonomical designation), known in English as “ambarella” or, weirdly, “Jewish plum.” A plum (Prunus domestica), I assure you, it is not. Then there’s the infamous zapote (Quararibea cordata), a name appropriated by entirely different fruits depending on who you ask, or rather where they’re from, and often confused with the mamey (Pouteria sapota) or the níspero (Manilkara zapota), a hypnotically aromatic fruit of Eden about which books could be written, and probably have. We had a níspero tree in our back yard, to the delight of fruit bats all around, who always got to the fruit before we could, although we basked nightly in its musky fragrance, which the breeze blended gently with jasmine floating in from the street.
Pitahaya
Needless to say (although I’m saying it), these taxonomical derivations branch out endlessly, through a kaleidoscopic maze of shifting flavors and aromas that tantalize the senses and challenge our ability to name them in any language. And so far I’ve only mentioned a few relatively close-knit relatives, as you can tell from their common botanical surnames. Then you have the guanábana (Annona muricata, or soursop), chirimoya (Annona cherimola, in English “cherimoya”), badea (Passiflora quadrangularis, the largest of the passiflora) and pitahaya (Hylocereus undatus), another one of my favorites, a prickly cactus pear with a nocturnal flower so large that when it opens at dusk you can see the movement of its petals. We had one of those, too; our dog barked at it.
Chontaduro
Some of these I’ve seen here, at local markets in Hispanic neighborhoods of cities like Miami, New York and LA, but never, of course, in the abundance or the freshness with which we found them on the carts of street vendors after school when we’d spend a couple of pesos on a bunch of juicy, tart mamoncillos (Spanish lime or quenepa, Melicoccus bijugatus) or grosellas (Phyllanthus acidus, or amlak, or gooseberry, out of which my aunt María made a badass dulce or marmalade), or an oily, reddish-orange chontaduro (Bactris gasipaes) dipped in salt and imbued, supposedly, with aphrodisiac properties which we had no use for at that age. Well, you never know.
Ciruela
The botanically-correct may object that none of these can be said to be originally Colombian and therefore lack “authenticity,” but frankly, my dear, no fruit, vegetable or biological species of any kind can meet that high standard. In fact, political boundaries were drawn millions of years after the flora was already there. You yourself, if you dig deeply enough into your bloodline, will discover genetic roots in surprising parts of our planet. Some of these examples, like the grosella, are actually of Asian origin, but who can deny what a huge part of their childhood they were in Colombia?
Zapote
I‘m not about to provide a scientifically accurate compendium of the precise species that make up our bio-cultural heritage, but to bask in the memory of those flavors and aromas that our soul embraces as part of our Colombian experience, at whatever stage of life we happened to live it. I could go on about milkshakes with maracuyá (Passiflora edulis), so acid you have to sweeten the milk before mixing in the fruit, so it won’t curdle, or the perfumous curuba (Passiflora tripartita), of the same family, but with a touch of pink, rindy bitterness that makes you want to drink it forever.
Grosella
And then there’s lulo (Solanum quitoense) selfishly named after the Ecuadorian capital, where it is curiously known as naranjilla (but looks more like a variety of tomato, as taxonomists seem to agree), not consumed by itself but sweetened and diluted in ice water as an extreme hot weather refreshment that makes lemonade pale in comparison. And the jobo fruit (Spondias mombin), which is so acid it weakens tooth enamel, and so aromatic you can smell the tree from blocks away.
Curuba
Some of these are not intended by nature to stand alone but to complement or intensify other fruits and flavors in cocktails, blends or a sumptuous salpicón (a kind of liquid salad), much like an ace parfumeur combines and contrasts different notes and essences to create masterpiece fragrances that marvel and enrapture the senses and the imagination. In the case of the jobo and níspero, in fact, I’d love to explore their possibilities as perfume extracts. Maybe somebody can help me out there.
Lulo
But I digress. And what use, anyway? What need to further torture our gentle reader with painful memories of paradise lost? You’re drooling already, I know. With such resources at their disposal, any Colombian cook, chef or housewife can perform the same magic in the shaded comfort of a fragrant, open-air home kitchen. I think I’ll go see aunt María this Christmas.
