Agua de capulin (Mexican black cherry)

Not much time ever goes by before I encounter a fruit I've never laid eyes on. This time it was the capulin, which according to one translation is the "Mexican black cherry"; another said it's capulin in English too.

I'm not sure how common capulines are because Gustavo had never tried them either. A lady in the street sold them to us along with some mangoes. She instructed us to make agua de capulin by mashing them up with our hands.

Capulines are the size of small grapes, and have a large pit and not too much flesh. We did as we were told, and squished the capulines in a glass bowl until the pits were mostly separated from the fruit. Then we strained the fruit, pushing as much juice through as possible. The result was a thick capulin concentrate to which we added sugar and water to fill the pitcher.

The result: a pretty refreshing agua fresca, but a less than appetizing color. I think I might name it the "Mexican brown cherry." (I'm not fond of agua de tamarindo for the same reason.) The flavor was agradable but nothing to write home about. For one, it didn't taste anything like cherry. The capulin has a very earthy flavor, and the only other fruit it reminded me of was mulberries.

So, an interesting culinary experience--it's always fun to try out new flavors. But not sure I'll become a capulin fan.

How to make Agua de Guayaba

Behold the guayaba. A small, yellow, head-shaped fruit with creamy flesh, filled with hard seeds that get stuck in your teeth. Deliciously sweet, and excellent in an agua fresca.

Aguas frescas are so simple to make that they hardly call for a recipe, but they weren't in my repertoire before living in Mexico. A step by step instructional is listed below. If you're making agua with any seedless fruit you can skip the strainer.

STEP 1. Quarter 4 to 6 guayabas. I had 4, so I used 4. You can cut off the ends if you want. (See optional STEP 7.)

STEP 2. Toss the quartered fruit into a blender along with 6 to 8 tablespoons of sugar. Add 4 to 5 cups of water. (This is no exact science.) Alternatively, you can boil the water with the sugar first to make an easy dissolving syrup.

STEP 3. Blend!

STEP 4. Place a small strainer on top of a pitcher to catch the seeds. (I have a prettier pitcher than this one, but it doesn't fit in the fridge.) Pour blended mixture through it.

STEP 5. Mash the juices down with a spoon until all the good stuff is in the pitcher.

STEP 6. Add water to top off the pitcher, stir a bit, and you're ready to go! Serve immediately with ice, or stick in the fridge for later.

STEP 7. (OPTIONAL) Give extra bits of guayaba to Sabina. What a greedy parrot.






In recent years, aguas frescas have been completely taken over by sugary sodas. The weekly entertainment mag Dia Siete just put out a great article about the history of aguas in Mexico (click here to read), and the fruits and other unusual ingredients that make them. Recipes included. If you read Spanish, I highly recommend it. For those who don't, I'll translate the opener:

15 years ago, squeezed lime, sweet pineapple, juicy melon, refreshing watermelon or any piece of fruit was mixed with natural water to prepare a pitcher of agua fresca that --at the center of the lunchtime table-- not only hydrated the majority of Mexican families, but also provided many natural nutrients. Today, 8 of every 10 Mexicans consume soft drinks with their meals. As one of the regions of the world with the largest diversity of fruits, it might be worth refreshing ourselves with aguas once again.

Strange fruit — la pitaya

I laid awake in bed last night trying to come up with a way to describe the pitaya using words. It's a fruit straight out of Avatar, a thing the size of a peach that only appears once a year for a limited time only. It's trucked through the streets and markets of Guadalajara in wagons, buried in green straw. It's prickly.

Gustavo bought some, put them on a plate on the kitchen counter, and told me not to touch them (because of said prickles). I stayed out of the kitchen all afternoon, shooting sideways glances at the fruit every now and then. I've seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You never know.

Once you open the pitaya, which Gustavo did with a kitchen towel instead of his bare hands, you get a ball of densely packed seeds and stringy pulp that tastes like sweetened nothing. Breaking apart the fruit with your hands is not unlike opening a snowball. Some are red, others purple, and some are a pale green.

We made agua de pitaya which was blood red, almost grotesque. It didn't have much of a taste, but was icy and refreshing down to the soul. The pitaya shows up right before the rainy season in June, and I had felt chronically dehydrated since April.

The pitaya, or dragon fruit, according to Wikipedia.