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So it looks like that delicious green papaya salad is made with a different kind of papaya. I hope I have that right. I am familiar with this kind of papaya because it grows pretty well in Southern California. I had one. I know it as a Babaco papaya. It is big and very green.
A guy at Maku'u had some. He looked puzzled when I said "Babaco", so I didn't say anything more. I grabbed a couple, and much to my surprise, made something resembling green papaya salad! It was very primitive, but very good! (I peeled it, shredded it, threw in some lime, some peanut butter and some of that Vietnamese Chili Garlic sauce. Done.) I'm insane for foods that inflame!
Is anyone growing these?
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We have a tree that our neighbors all love for green papaya salad...they call it Mexican papaya...it is a large almost football shape & size papaya that is smooth, no ridges (we also have ridge-y papayas that are more like large acorn squash with ridges with very few seeds)... have no idea what the real name of either is...and I have used both for green papaya salad - just a little more work with the ridged fruit...
The only babaco I know of is a ridged fruit that we used to get in Venezuela that was more melon-like & didn't have the black, round, wrinkley seeds of the papaya...
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Yummy
I love papaya salad!! I'm back in Alaska.
But sometimes I can find a green mexican papaya.
I'll shred it up
add lime, hot hot peppers candied peanuts (I make/candy them) and I add pickled ginger sometimes I'll put green onions in I'll mash it up muddle the flavors-- add the peanuts in last --I love the crunch --
my husband makes green papaya chicken. Oh wow this also's a winner in our house--
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I thought the ones with ridges that look like acorn squash are from bisexual plants vs female plants.
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The kind I am talking about are big and smooth and a little green. Not sure if they are bisexual or not. That stuff is just all so technical to me. I just know what I like. So, you know, like nevermind.
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RE the bisexual ones, I meant the ones Carey was talking about. When I see them in my yard, I roll my eyes and say "oh please, girl, Elton John claimed he was bi in the 70s and look how that turned out. Get off the fence already!" Then I rip them out!
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I have to go easy on Elton because when I first saw him at the Santa Monica Civic, I was in the company of the two girls I was living with. They were both my girlfriends. Not a single member of my family would come into my apartment because of this sin. I am not bragging. It was wrong and complicated and only one of us got hurt and I apologized and she is fine now, doing so well that she has something called a discography. I should've stayed on the farm....I should have listened to my old man. I'm not a present for your friends to open....this boy's too young to be singin' the blues.....
And then someone showed me how green papaya salad was made. I mean, literally, do this, shred this, add heat...more...enough, enough enough!....very good! So here I am planting all of these regular papayas, only to find out that the delicious stuff I really love is a completely.....different....papaya! And maybe not a papaya at all!
Imagine my shock and surprise. Hey. Wow. Jesus! Why didn't anyone tell me!!?? I mean, when I look back, boy, I must have been dreamin'...livin' in the country....fishing from a stream...lookin'for an answer. Trying to find a sign. Until I saw your city lights, honey, I was blind. I miss those days and my redneck ways! I read those books and I read those magazines about those HIGH class ladies down in New Orleans.....Ooh....ooh....oooh.....a change is gonna do me good!
Anyway, suffice it to say, I feel that I have been wronged twice.
If there is anything else I need to know about this island, I think y'all should tell me. Right now.
Green papaya salad is not made with THOSE papayas.
In the meantime, I am not plantin' any more of those sweet little breakfast papayas. I thought I liked them! I did like them! And then the whipoorwill of freedom zapped me right between the eyes. And I found something I like better. So did Elton. And you can tell everybody....this is your song, and I'm going with Babaco.
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I have made green papaya salad with any ol' green papaya that I have found, and no-one has told me that I used the wrong fruit (or maybe they were just being nice, but they have always finished the salad...or maybe the only thing that really matters is the heat...oh baby!!!).
I also do not plant papaya, but allow those that have chosen to spring forth to grow, and eat & shred what they provide....so I may not be the one to give any but the lowest effort advise....
My advise: Enjoy the papayas you have, twist their tops to keep them from growin' too tall, and the bigger, less ridge-y ones are just easier to peel & shred, but the small and the ridged papaya still turn out a nice shredded green papaya salad
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N'ah. I think y'all misled me. It's those big, fat green papayas that they use. No ridges. I want the truth now. No more of this island-y hide the ball from the new guy stuff.
