Quenepas

I think I was nine the year I went to Puerto Rico with my dad for his friend's son's christening. My mom and brother stayed home for reasons I can't remember, so for a couple weeks it was just the two of us, exploring the island and eating.

Like me, my father likes to snack and feast, and thinks about his next meal midway through the current one. He gladly handed dollar bills out the car window to panhandlers on the highway selling plantain chips and bags of cucas--these hard round cookies about the size of my palm that tasted of ginger and shortening (with a hint of exhaust). They're the kind of cookies you gnaw on instead of chew, and I could gnaw through a bag for the better part of an afternoon while driving across the island.


We were heading east towards El Yunque, the lush tropical rainforest where my dad's hippie friend would be christening his son in a river. Because on this island, even the hippies are Catholics.

I wore an orange bathing suit that had reached its final summer, the fabric having grown thin and pilly from chlorine and the rough concrete walls of our NJ pool club. The plastic fastener on the back had also grown loose and popped open repeatedly, but I didn't care because I was nine and had been brought to a real river in a real jungle to swim and play with cousins I only barely knew.

That day, we climbed huge boulders slick with vegetation, and jumped into the fresh water. Accustomed to pristine swimming pools, I squirmed at the thought of fish slipping between my toes in the murky depths, but soon shrugged it off after the third, fourth, fifth jump. The adults weren't really watching us, though they weren't far away. Someone discovered a vine that dropped thick and strong from overhead, and we grabbed it, swung, and dropped in.

In the middle of the afternoon, we broke for the ceremony and stood by watching as the baby's head was gently washed with three handfuls of fresh water from the river. One for the Father. One for the Son. One for the Holy Spirit.

We erupted into applause and were released once again. I lay on a boulder with a book, lapping up sun like a lizard and allowing myself to be interrupted only for the occasional treats my father offered--codfish fritters, flaky turnovers filled with cheese, and a bowl filled with quenepas.

Quenepas were always served with a warning. The tough outer shell bursts easily between your teeth with just the slightest pressure revealing a slick, fleshy pulp clinging to a pit. The texture feels almost inappropriate, but the fruit tastes of sweet lime and roses. Eating it is dangerous, since the smooth ball can easily slip down a throat, but we'd been eating them since forever and brushed off the warnings as we sucked on the juicy pulp. After a while, the tannins in the shell left the tips of our tongues feeling like they, too, had been sucked and bruised.

Quenepas are everywhere in Puerto Rico, but at home in NJ they were rare. So I tucked a bag of them among sandy shorts and t-shirts just before flying back. They didn't scan things quite as carefully then, and the seeded branch made it through two airports undisturbed. Back in school I told the class about the river, laying out smooth stones that I'd pulled out of the water and passing out one smooth lime green fruit to each of my friends.

The teacher, a substitute with a puff of yellow hair and a southern accent, pronounced the names strangely, with a soft y and long a's, and repeated parts of my story like she'd never heard of such a thing. For a moment I questioned whether it was I who'd made the mistake; a wrong translation, maybe, or some kind of cultural difference. But the kids understood, and I knew that it was just her.

Years later, I left my office in the afternoon mug of August to find myself standing in front of a box of them. Tiny green limes with just a hint of bruise all clustered on branches. The vendor stared at me oddly as I greedily shoveled large handfuls into the bag he'd given me. I brought six pounds back to my desk, dropping the pile before the coworkers who stared at me just as oddly as the vendor had. Stories of river and orange bathing suits tumbled out of my mouth as I showed them the way the delicate shell burst between my teeth.

"Be careful," I warned, when they finally lifted one up to their mouths. "They're dangerous."