Please help me. I was given an entire crate of papaya as a gift from a neighbor with a massive orchard and I was excited because I remember my great grandma had a pawpaw tree and i'm pretty sure we ate it all the time.

These things taste and smell like vomit. I know they're an acquired taste but what can I do to make them not so gross?

**Edit: I figured it out, I didn't peel off enough of the rind. The innards are quite delicious, but the smell is still nauseating.

If you have any recipes, please offer them up!!! I have about 30 lbs worth.

lol. Vomit, sad day


I'd suggest looking at www.allrecipies.com it's got everything, and nutritional information, I just love it

Yep, they smell like vomit, but as long as they are not over-ripe, they are really, really good on the inside. Once they are over-ripe, however, that smell pervades the flesh and...well...eating vomit is not the best.

I don't really know what else to do with them besides eating them plain or in fruit salad. I have never heard of anyone making them into something...I suppose they do, but not that I've ever heard. Personally, I like them with a little lemon or lime juice sqeezed over them, slices up for breakfast. And they are really, really good for you.

Good to know. I took all of the ripe ones and made them into raw mango-papaya-chile pepper chutney and it is quite delicious. I still had some scotch bonnets from my last harvest wasting away so at least they got put to good use as well. I'm glad I like it so much because I have a half-gallon Ball jar of it in my fridge and the spiciness would probably kill mere mortals which limits my sharing opportunities. LoL.

The less ripe ones do taste a lot better so I cut those up and put them in the fridge to use at my discretion as a salad topping (as you suggested. Yum!) and for fruit and yogurt concoctions at breakfast.

I ended up making some sort of Indian inspired dish with jasmine rice, curried black beans, lime, and shredded turkey in phyllo dough pockets and using the chutney as dipping sauce. Quite tasty.

Ooo, making them into a chutney is a great idea. I hadn't thought of that. And yes, I do put them into a salad -- fruit in salad is one of my favorite things. I just added some chile-lime dried mangos into my chicken salad for dinner tonight -- it was incredible. Papaya would have been perfect in there as well.

What an interesting gift. I'm not a huge papaya fan myself, I've only had them just cut up and raw, but I'm sure you could make a papaya salsa or chunty that would be good. Find a recipe for peach or mango salsa or chunty and replace the fruit with papaya.