Who’s your mamey?

Tianguis vendors love to offer food samples. If they’re not asking, “Que le damos, señorita? Linda? Guapa?” they’re yelling, “Mango! Papaya!” and attempting to shove a piece of it in your face. (As politely as possible.) On Sunday a guy offered me what I thought was papaya — a wedge of fiery sunset-colored fruit with a coconut-like rind. It tasted weird. Sweet, but not too much. The texture reminded me of cooked sweet potato.

“It’s mamey,” he said. Then he asked if I wanted to buy two or three.

I’d wondered about mamey. The name alone always enchanted me. Mah-MAY. Can’t you see that dangling from a palm tree? Or like, doing a rumba dance?

So I bought one. Sliced it open yesterday and found a strange, glassy black seed. It looked exactly like an alien’s eye, from the kind of alien that kidnaps people in the middle of the night. Kind of scary. But it made me love mamey all the more. It’s an alien fruit. A coconut-papaya-sweet-potato alien fruit. Mmm.

Now, what to make with it. Mamey muffins. Mamey pancakes. MAMEY ICE CREAM, PEOPLE.