How Do People Usually Eat The Papaya?

Some enjoy it raw—when ripe, of course—with or without sugar or lemon. Many Brazilians prefer it in fruit salad, together with banana, mango and pineapple. Or they make it into a delicious drink by mixing the ripe flesh in a blender together with pineapple or other fruits. Others prefer papaya as a sauce, prepared by cooking unripe fruits and adding sugar and perhaps grated coconut.

The green fruit flesh cooked in syrup also is very tasty. Still others use the papaya unripe as a vegetable (cooked like squash), particularly in stews. Additional uses are in pies, sherbets and confections. Compote also is made from the green fruit, either cut in cubes or grated. Cut the fruit in cubes and leave them in water with a little quicklime (wrapped in a cloth) until the next day. Then rinse off the cubes and cook them with sugar or, for caramel flavor, with burned sugar. The quicklime hardens the outside, as in crystallized fruit. Unfortunately, papayas are highly perishable and are difficult to export, except when canned or as juice in soft drinks.