Eek! The giant papaya!

Being from New Orleans, I was stopped cold by the word Formosa, which I've only ever heard in association with termites. Formosan termites can eat through a whole house in very short order, and the Southern US is badly afflicted with 'em; you really really really hope your house doesn't get them, and you shell out many a dollar for a comprehensive prevention contract...

But. That has nothing to do with this hefty hula gal of a tropical fruit.

It was perfectly ripe: soft but not mushy, intensely fragrant, and generous in quanitity - it may have cost £2.99, but it yielded at least four normal fruits' worth. O heavenly cereal topping! O delectable yoghurt mixer! Not to mention, sensational scoop-straight-from-the-bowl snack. Dan and I had some right away with an improvised lunch of Dr. Karg spelt emmenthal cheese and pumpkin seed crackers spread with leftover black bnz. I added this little find below...

Yes, I fell for the packaging. Especially since you could choose from three goats: Flo, Ethel and Eva. Flo was a little too naive and relaxed for me; Eva struck me as somewhat vainglorious. But Ethel, with her skeptical, flat-eared tilt of the head struck me as the conscientious kind of gal goat I could trust to make me a fine bit o' cheese. And anyway, I'm a Capricorn.

I was not disappointed. The little round of goodness was crumbly in the middle, gooey near the rind, and oh-so-goaty with a touch of tang, just like chevre should be. Paired with my fine-tuned herby black bnz on the crackers, it was a divine little number for lunch.

When I snapped the pic above, Dan suggested, rather uncharitably, that I keep the camera poised for my next bowel movement as well, since surely my gentle readers for whom I was capturing every phase of Saturday lunch would like to know the 'end result'. But he doesn't even like the goaty goodness of chevre, so how can we possibly trust his observations? Indeed, we cannot.