Passion fruit

The first time that I ate a passion fruit was this past August when I was in Hawaii. My traveling buddies and I had gone to a tourist trap of a lavatube where the consolation for paying twice what the experience was worth was some great pictures in our bright blue hard hats and a fresh from the tree passion fruit that the owner had brought in from her yard to get rid of. This particular kind of passion fruit (I've heard that there are many) was bright yellow and extremely juicy. The color drew you to it like a bug to a light. The three of us that decided to try them cut a hole in the top and used the straws from our previously consumed coconut mochas to slurp the burningly sour juice from the fruit. I was glad to say I had tried it, but was not ready to have passion fruit again anytime soon.

My second passion fruit experience was in Kigali, at St. Paul's Mission where we ate dinner every night during training. The passion fruit there were multicolored, and had designs like heirloom tomatoes. In the spirit of second chances, I decided to give one a try. The insides of these were bright orange and not quite as juicy as the Hawaiian fruit…the apparent difference was encouraging. But alas, my lips began to pucker in defense after the first taste and I decided that the passion fruit had lost its chance. I had let the beauty of this fruit fool me twice, but never again.

But passion fruit was not done with me yet. Today Katy and I walked up to the nuns' quarters to see if we could buy some eggs from them. In Rwanda, if someone stops by, you always ask them to sit down and offer them tea or milk and something small to eat. Yesterday they gave us homemade cookies, today sitting in a basket on their table was a dozen or so of what looked like a mix between a dried fig and a small avocado. Out came two plates, two knives, and two small spoons. The sisters would not take "oya" for an answer. It was when we were pulling out stools to sit down on that Sister Anatalie finally arrived at the English word for the food we were about to eat: passion fruit. Well, I had done a lot of unpleasant things over the past month not the least of which was to be sick in a pit latrine. If I could do that, I could definitely down a passion fruit with an appreciative smile on my face. So I took up my knife, grasped the offending food in my hand and sliced her open. While the insides looked exactly like Kigali passion fruit, I was surprise by a very pleasing aroma. I've heard that smell is the strongest memory trigger and this smell brought me back to middle school and one of my first Bath and Body Works purchases. It smelled exactly like a passion fruit lotion or shower gel or bath powder or something that I had bought years ago when cosmetics were a novelty.

So far, things were going well. Preparing myself, I scooped out the slimy orange seeds and juice and took my first bite. As I closed my mouth, preparing to resist a pucker, my taste buds began to relax. "Hey, this isn't so bad" they said. "We can handle this." I took another bite. While it wasn't exactly a pleasurable experience, it was much more tolerable than my first two passion fruits. I looked over at Katy. She was crunching away at her fruit as well. The seeds were very snappy and numerous so the eating process was a bit noisy. After a few bites, we noticed that Sister Anatalie was laughing at us and making a strange chewing/sucking motion with her mouth. We tried to figure out what she was trying to say, to no avail. We determined that our faces must have looked like we thought the fruit was sour and tried to reassure her that it was good. We finished eating and Sisters Martha and Agnes came in and talked with us as Anatalie left for prayers. The basket was shoved our way again. "No thank you, one is good" Katy responded. "Oh, one is good but two is better" Sister Martha replied. So Katy and I looked at each other and took another. As we broke them open, our conversation about the arrival of the students continued until the two nuns stopped, looked at each other, and broke into laughter. Katie and I looked at each other, trying to figure out what was so funny and not understanding their English through their laughter. Finally, they calmed down enough to explain. Apparently you are not suppose to chew passion fruit. This makes complete sense since the seeds are so crunchy and the flavor is all in the slimy film around them. We laughed at ourselves and tried the recommended method. Much better! Without the bitter flavor of the seeds, the fruit tasted a hundred times better. The rest of the fruit I let linger on my tongue before letting the seeds slip down my gullet. I mentally added passion fruit to my next shopping list. Happy to have provided some entertainment, Katy and I took our leave and commented on our small success: finding one more item to add to our small list of local edibles. Hmmm…passion fruit oatmeal? It just might work.