Manuel noticed Jen staring at the fat, pink bulbs hanging down above us and he went to grab a machete. We were eating breakfast in the back courtyard of the Casa San Juan, a Spanish colonial house, in Merida, Mexico, which was built in the 1800’s and lately renovated into a guesthouse.
The back courtyard of the Casa was a lush oasis from the noise and heat of Merida’s streets. Jen and I were the only two guests that morning and we lingered, sipping our coffee and fresh juice that Manuel brought us. A tall tree grew in the middle of the courtyard and provided shade for Jen and I and the couple of shy cats that called the courtyard their home.
As only seems to occur in tropical or rainy climates, the tree itself was home to a number of epiphytic plants and cacti. Epiphytes are plants that live on trees without being parasites and they turned the tree near our breakfast table into a vertical garden. Bromeliads and cacti spilled from the lower branches of the tree, making it seem like we were eating breakfast in a rainforest, rather than in the middle of a concrete city with over a half million residents.
Long, green ribbons of a type of holiday cactus hung down from the tree, anchored in the air by fat, pink fruit the size of a fist. This type of cacti lives in tree branches where, even if it rains constantly, the water drains off the branches so that the cactus itself actually lives in a dry, almost desert like environment.
Manuel noticed Jen staring at the bulbs, went off towards the kitchen, and came back with a wickedly long machete. He quickly cut a bulb off one of the cactus ribbons and put it on a plate. In a smooth motion, he placed the blade along the bulb’s equator and neatly sliced it in two.
Inside each half of the fruit was a perfect circle of a white filling with black spots, which in my mind looked like chocolate chip ice cream. Manual handed us spoons and indicated that we should eat. We dipped the spoons into the filling which had solid yet soft consistency.
“What is this called?” Jen asked.
“Se llama la fruta mas bella del mundo,” Manuel answered. It’s called the most beautiful fruit in the world.
And so we ate the most beautiful fruit in the world, dipping our spoons into it and eating the insides much like one eats a kiwi fruit. The taste was subtle and mild, only slightly sweet in comparison to most fruit. There was some irony to be found in the fact that something so beautiful has an almost plain flavor.
As we traveled across Mexico and Guatemala, we continued to see the bright pink bulbs both growing from cacti and being sold in markets. The pink, rubbery skin hid the black and white center and we were glad to know what secret hid in such a beautiful fruit.
Years later we were surprised to find the most beautiful fruit in the world being sold at markets around corner from our Chinatown apartment in Victoria. They lie, individually wrapped in plastic, inside of cardboard boxes labeled "Dragon Fruit."
The proper name, the Internet tells me, is pitaya or Hylocereus undatus. The fruit grows in most tropical regions of the planet but likely originated in the Southern Mexico/Northern Central America region in which we first discovered and devoured it.
In addition to dragon fruit, it is also called the apple cactus, the rose cactus, the strawberry pear, nanettikafruit, and various other names. But for us, it will always be la fruta mas bella del mundo, the most beautiful fruit in the world. And from time to time, we’ll go around the corner to the market and buy one, put it on a plate, and slice it open with a kitchen knife. We’ll dream that our knife is a machete and that our kitchen table is outside under a vertical garden and we’ll consume the bland taste of beauty.
