You
say Pitaya, I say Pitalla
By Don Adams © Don Adams 2004
"Everybody
has a cousin in Miami"… from the song by Jimmy Buffet
In certain parts of Mexico it seems that everyone has a cousin named Carlos Santana. This past week I met more of those relatives beneath a pitaya ramada near the small Jalisco village of Techaluta. Pedro had come over from his home in Tepec, near Tapalpa, to visit with his father, Trinidad, and Martin Gomez, the brother of his brother-in-law. They were manning the palm-frond-roofed structure that shaded that day's quota of pitayas offered to the motoring public by that branch of the Santana family.
I'd drifted
over from my home between Ajijic and San Juan Cosalá to check out the activities
of the pitaya growers and merchants. In the past I've devoured many of the tasty
cactus fruits, and I did again during this visit, but I also enjoyed another
exotic meal on my way home; barbecued avestruz. But more about that later. 
If you've ever driven the back roads or highways of Jalisco and northern Colima during the months of May and June you've seen them. Vendors of the delicacy set up temporary one or two product stalls alongside the roads and offer travelers the chance to buy one of the most economically important and beloved fruits of the area. Some signs say pitaya and some say pitalla but both are pronounced the same and both mean the purchaser is in store for a delightful gastronomic treat.
Cajeta salesmen
with their rich gritty caramel candy are out year round but the savvy pitaya
gourmand knows that the window of opportunity to savor that wonder of nature
is very small. And the growers and sellers know that they have to make hay while
the sun shines so there's a massive area-wide flurry of activity to cash in
on the bounty of the fields. 
What is this pitaya that causes such a fuss? Nothing more or less than the humble fruit of one local variety of upright cactus. There are a number of varieties in different areas of Mexico that produce the fruit, often of differing types and at differing times, but I'm writing about the ones produced in this part of Mexico. Growers as far away as Israel, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as farmers in areas of Central and South America where the fruits are traditionally grown, are currently developing strains of cactus plants and even vines to produce commercial crops suitable for export. Right now, in most places pitayas grown locally must usually be sold locally.
The huge
multi-armed cacti in this area reach heights of up to twenty-five feet at maturity,
but start bearing fruit at a much younger age; some sources say about two years.
Whatever the age the fruit begins to form about four months before it will be
ready for harvest. That means sometime in January the buds began to appear and
the pitaya picking began in May. The growing season ends when the rains start
in June. A dry early summer means a longer growing season since moisture won't
cause the fruit to rot on the plant.
"Come, here's a field. See it all before you write." Tourist Francisco Chavez Chavez had stopped to purchase a few pitayas and invited himself to assist in my research. If you have the opportunity to travel in Mexico, you too will discover how easily you can become a part of the events around you. Quite often you become the center-stage actor unless you exert superhuman self-control. For a ham like me, rural Mexico is the Palladium. But the guys did teach me a lot that day as I forced myself to shut up and listen.
For example,
harvesting the crop and getting the fruits ready to sell is no easy task. First,
most of them are far out of reach of most normal-sized pitaya pickers. Second,
they're cactus fruit, which of course means they're growing on a thorny, inhospitable
plant. And third, just to make things that much more difficult, the pitaya itself
is covered with dozens of spiny thorns over a half inch long and radiating out
in all directions. Sometimes, as with oysters and liver, I wonder what ever
possessed the first person to eat one of those things. Okay, oysters and pitayas
each turned out to be a good thing, but still, can you imagine the process that
went into discovering that they were delectable? 
Actually the process is not as involved or dangerous as you might think. The harvesters use a tool called a gancho---the generic name for a hook---to get the fruit from the plant. The particular tool used has four prongs, each about four inches long, that together form a small metal basket which is lashed to the end of a long bamboo pole. The picker just slides the gancho around a ripe pitaya, gives a deft twist, pops the fruit loose, and lowers it into his collecting basket.
That's the
easy part. At some point those spines have to be removed before the customer
will buy the pitaya. Luckily, they come off relatively easy. On the day I observed
the process Martin used a pair of kitchen tongs to hold the fruit while he scraped
it with a blade, but Adan just down the road, held it in his bare hand. His
wife, Luz Maria, used tongs though.
Of course the result of all this labor is a huge pile of thorns. In Mexico that's no problem; the pitaya peddlers just pile them beside their temporary tiendas and burn them when the pile gets large enough.
Once they're
dressed out and ready to offer to the public the seller will find a large shallow
basket and cover the bottom with a one or two inch layer of fresh alfalfa. On
top of that is placed a layer of pitayas which are then covered by another layer
of the greenery, and the process is repeated, finishing off with a top cover
of alfalfa. The fresh sprigs protect the delicate fruit from heat and sun. Without
that, the pitayas get mushy. Fresh fruit that hasn't yet begun to split it's
skin might last two or three days after being picked, or as long as five days
if refrigerated. And this is not a crop that can be picked green and shipped
out to ripen in transit although Columbia does produce a variety hardy enough
for export. 
Nature produces these pitayas in five colors, red, orange, white, yellow, and purple with up to a dozen dazzling variations to please the eye. There is a subtle but discernable difference in taste along the color spectrum also. Very subtle to the inexperienced palate, but when you get right down to it, they're all sweet and delicious.
What's the
cost of this once-a-year treat? Anywhere from two to seven pesos depending on
the size. At the current exchange rate that's about sixteen or seventeen cents
on up to sixty-two cents or so. Trust me, they're worth every centavo. 
How important is the crop to the region? In Techaluta this year, very important to Fabiola, Susana, Yadira, Aracely, Karina, and Berenice because they were all candidates for Queen of the 2004 Pitaya Feria in the town.
And to the
sellers of hand-crafted jewelry, and hand-painted aprons and kitchen towels,
and to the lone Huichol craftsman displaying his intricately designed beadwork,
and to the maker of the bent twig furniture, and to the painters, and to the
Sayula knife sellers, and to all of those who would gather in the small plaza
on that Saturday and Sunday to celebrate and offer thanks for another year of
rewards from the hot dusty fields. The pitaya each year offers a reason for
the community to gather in friendship and celebration of an enviable but demanding
lifestyle and a chance this year to be entertained by two bands as well as the
conversation of friends. 
On my way
home I stopped outside of Acatlan de Juarez for my first real meal of the day.
I'd eaten a number of pitayas, poking my thumbs into the split in the rind and
pulling them open to expose the fleshy pulp. Usually one big bite was enough
to separate the fruit from the outer covering. There are dozens of tiny black
seeds in the pitaya which give a slightly gritty sensation to the treat, part
of the total sensory reward of trying this delicacy. But now I was in a new
restaurant, in operation for only ten days, Esperanza told me as she dished
up my plate. It was the only choice on the menu-chopped barbecued avestruz-ostrich
prepared in a tangy tomato sauce laced with whole green olives. Beans, tortillas,
lime wedges and thick rounds of pickled jalapeño, with a Coke Light pulled from
Esperanza's stand-up cooler to wash it down completed the meal.
"Are you
coming tonight?" Pedro had yelled from the bed of his father's passing truck
as I walked off the plaza after buying a few items from the vendors set up there.
"I'll try," I shouted back, realizing as soon as the words were out that I had
told a lie. Fifty miles home to shower and change to make myself presentable
for that night's festivities, fifty miles back, several hours of revelry before
the final trip home on a curvy two lane road in the middle of the night, a schedule
which once raised no blip whatsoever on my radar screen, was, at my age merely
a fond memory of things done in a rowdier and less rational youth. 
As I sat there after savoring my food and questioning Esperanza about the twelve ugly birds remaining of the fifteen she started with ten days earlier, my mind turned to the fiesta to be held later that night in Techaluta.
I discovered that I hadn't really lied to Pedro. Sí, Pedro; and Trinidad, Martin, Luz Maria, Adan, the lovely Queen contestants, and all the citizens of Techaluta; you may not see my heart and my spirit, but they and my thoughts will be there with you tonight. Thank you for sharing your world with me.