Passion & Peace

Perhaps the single best thing for me about being in Brazil was eating tropical fruit I used to eat as a kid.  One in particular made me a little nostalgic, the passion fruit.  I didn't like it much as a kid, and I still don't, but the smell is peculiar and fills the kitchen; not as much as ripe guavas do, but the guava season in Brazil is December...

The maracujà is known for its calming effect, and is popular during end-of-year exams among students of all ages.  The name in English is misleading to Brazilians;  at first, we think of passion in the romantic sense of the word when we become familiar with what Anglos call it.  Then we find out (if we care to) that it is the name given to this extraordinary looking fruit by XV century Jesuits attempting to convert Amerindians to Christianity.

If I were writing a sci-fi story, I would use this fruit instead of aliens.  Being taken over by an army of passion fruit and attached to each of these tentacle-like stems inside it beats coming up with yet another anthropomorphic version of extraterrestrial creatures.  Look, it even looks a little like an open mouth waiting to take you in and lower your blood pressure... combine that with poisonous frogs and it's a blockbuster.

Maracuja'