Try eating the green papaya like carrots in a salad. The thais love grated or julienned green papaya salad with a little lemon or lime and cilantro. I have been moving an bundling plants all day. I have a slew of green tomatoes. I gave up moving and I have three brugs out there that are toast. OH WELL>

Wantonamara, your brugs may NOT be toast............a light freeze may hurt the leaves, but not the plant itself. If these are container brugs, just cut the damaged part off and put the plant inside now .......they will be fine.

Wow -- never had any idea you could prepare green Papayas! Might try it. Maybe try to make a cake using the recipe Plantmaven Kathy provided on the green tomato thread .. :-)

Thanks!

Goodbye Papaya -- HELLO carrots! I just brought one in, cut it, and tasted it. The texture and even the flavor IS a lot like carrots -- slightly sweet. Who would have thunk it? :-)

The plant really is tender. All the leaves are drooped (of course) and even the melons oozed a bit of sap. If they hadn't oozed I'd think maybe they might ripen sitting on the counter. Anyway, I'll leave a couple to do that -- just in case.

Hey, Roselee.

We make a dessert with green papaya and pineapple in Venezuela. It tastes delicious. You may want to try it. Here's the recipe in case you go for it.

Peel off about 2 lbs of papaya very well (otherwise the skin will give the dessert a very sour taste). Grate the peeled off papaya and add about 1 lb of grated pineapple, 2 cinnamon sticks, 4 or five cloves, 2 cups of sugar and about one gallon of water. Simmer the mix (stirring frequently) until the papaya is cooked and the water turns into syrup. Let it cool down and chill it for 3-4 hours in the fridge. It tastes delicious alone or served with rice pudding. You can also can it and it will last for months.

Omar

A while back we saw a lovely movie and this post reminded me of the title, Roselee - "The Scent of Green Papaya"... sounds like new adventures in cooking will be the upside of losing the tree to frost.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Wow -- there was a movie with green papayas in the title? And you're absolutely right Annie! Every cloud has a silver lining :-)

Thanks for your recipe Omar! I saved several green ones to try these recipes you all have so kindly provided.

Thank you!

I am trying to learn from experienced papaya growers their successful "coping with cold" strategies. I am just a 9-papaya tree wannabe grower in the second year of learning/trying. So far it seems that hard-to-protect giant trees with giant fruit are too slow to develop before killer cold hits them....so I am trying to plant Hawaiin/smaller/easier-to-protect/quicker-to-mature-smaller-fruit papaya trees. When the expected killer cold makes it's annual visits, I've copied others' idea to encircle the lower 3-4 feet of trunk with fine-meshed wire fence and fill the inside with dried tree leaves to protect the trunk until Spring is sprung. The upper section (sadly) dies, but in the Spring the surviving trunk sends out side growth to start a new upper trunk.....Do you experienced papaya cold-copers have advice that you could help us less-accomplished with? I don't want to try to invent a new wheel, just locate those already rolling well. Thank you!

Carrots but different is exactly what they taste like. I bet they might last for a long time and maybe even ripen a tad. You should have keopt them and stored them like green tomatoes. I have also stirfied and used them in coconut milk based curries. Good eating.

I know this is an old thread, but I stumbled across it searching for threads on papayas in Tx. My wife is from the Philippines and there they make relishes from green papaya, peppers, etc called atchara and also use green papaya as a vegetable in soups much like chayote squash or even daikon radish, cooked in a soup it has about the same texture while imparting a very slight sweetness (If enough is used). It is also eaten, as is completely green unripened mango, with shrimp paste (Bagoong) sauteed with onions/garlic/tomatoes and sometimes hot peppers (Tabasco types) to create a salty sour acidic snack that has to be tried to be believed!

Stop it. LOL You're making me hungry!!! Sounds delicious.

But it reminded me to get out the seeds I save from last years store bought papaya to plant for the foliage and maybe some more green fruit.

Thanks for your input.

Roselee, I have yet to eat a ripe papaya; I've only ever eaten green--crazy, right?

They make fantastic pickling because their texture is so firm. When I was a kid on Guam they pickled sliced green papaya in soy sauce, vinegar and hot pepper or Tabasco. As an adult I shred the hardest green fruit I can find and make Thai salad with lots of lemon juice, crushed garlic, sambal (crushed hot pepper sauce), cilantro, fish sauce and a little diced tomato. It's very satisfying to chew through the julienned papaya!

Let me know if you grow another tree and have "excess" fruit you need to get rid of, lol!