The Sweet Taste of Christmas

Ivon Cuervo and Astrid Zacipa - Posted on January 22, 2010

Making deserts at Christmas is a family tradition. When Rebeca, Elizabeth’s mom, prepares a desert, her house is filled with the sweet smell of fruit. Today, Elizabeth, 14, shares with you her Christmas memories and a family recipe to make a papaya dessert so you can celebrate your Christmas with a taste of Colombia.

“My name is Elizabeth. I live with my parents and my eight brothers and sisters.”

At Christmas, my mom takes two of the ducks that we raised during the past year in the patio of our house and she cooks them with stuffing for dinner. This is also accompanied by a salad, bread, and papaya dessert.

Christmas is my favorite time of the year because families get together to make nativity scenes and pray together.

Every year we have a contest to see whose nativity scene is better, among the neighbors. So, everyone in our house brainstorms to have ideas to make our nativity scene more creative by recycling the materials that we already have.

Nine days before Christmas Eve, we get together with the neighbors to celebrate the novena, [this is a tradition] where we get together around the nativity scene and we sing villancios [Christmas carols], pray, and we share desserts that we brought from our houses, for nine days in a row.

I invite you to celebrate your Christmas with a tropical taste. Here is our recipe for making papaya dessert.”



Ingredients



Two papayas

Sugar

Three Lemons





Preparation



Peel and clean the papaya. Cut it into small pieces. Once the papaya is ready, you need to know how many pounds it weighs, so that you can add the same amount of sugar.

Put the papaya, without water, in a big pan and add the sugar and juice from the tree lemons. Stir the papaya carefully, so that it doesn’t stick. Once the papaya is soft and the sugar has been absorbed or become like a syrup, you are done. Now you can Enjoy.

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