In this Daily: Pitahaya Season and The Many Benefits of Dragon Fruit
Costa Rica is entering the heart of pitahaya (dragon fruit) season, when these vibrantly colored, attention-grabbing fruit finish flowering and begin to ripen. Immediately recognizable via their brightly hued, flared exterior, their single night floral blooms, and height reaching up to 40 feet, pitahayas have shown a tendency to capture the imagination wherever they’re grown, a legacy which includes the Islotes Pitahayas just offshore of Playa Danta.
Behind their vivid exterior the pitahaya has even more to offer, with a complex flavor, balanced nutritional profile, and a number of other health effects. With a few more months left of the pitahaya in bloom, we’re taking a deeper look at the cultivation and the many benefits of dragon fruit.
Growing and Sourcing Local Pitahaya
The pitahaya is native to southern Mexico, the Pacific side of Guatemala and Costa Rica, and El Salvador, though it has been naturalized and is now cultivated throughout the American tropics, southeast Asia, India, and parts of Africa and the Mediterranean.
The season for pitahaya typically starts a month or so into green season, with flowers beginning to bud by mid-June and fruit formation occurring shortly afterward. The pitahaya continues to produce flower buds and fruit throughout the season, before falling off in late September or October depending on the plant and location.
In Costa Rica, these plants remain cultivated in their native habitats along the Pacific coast, with one regional difference. In most cases the flesh of the dragon fruit is a pale white color with flecks of black, but there are also local variants that have a vivid dark fuchsia coloration of the flesh.
The Flavors and Preparations of Pitahayas
Pitahayas are simple to prepare, with a single cut down the middle revealing a dense core of dark fuchsia or white flesh. From there, the flesh of the dragon fruit can be easily removed with a spoon, or cut out from skin in its entirety depending on preferred use. Most preparations choose to discard the skin, which has little flavor, although in certain cases the vibrant color is distilled or used as a garnish.
The meat of the pitahaya has a subtly sweet flavor with a touch of tartness, reminiscent of a blend between kiwi, pear, and watermelon. Texture of the fruit most closely remembers kiwi, with a natural grain added by the tiny edible seeds.
As a result of this gentle but complex flavor, dragon fruit is a versatile cooking element, which is often used in Costa Rica as a garnish on whitefish and other seafoods, prepared into salsas and salads, made into a fresco with lime and a little sugar, eaten by itself as a snack, or adapted in other ways.
Two particular favorites in the area can be found thanks to Passiflory Panadería Artesanal and town’s own Chef Gilberto Briceño. Passiflory is a local artisan bakery whose mission is to promote alternative, healthy, and environmentally friendly products and change bread from “just” bread into the protagonist of dishes, like their pitahaya sourdough breads (above).
Another is the pitahaya mule, which Chef Gilberto Briceño makes as follows:
- 2oz Vodka
- ½ oz Dragonfruit Puree
- ½ oz Fresh Lime
- 4 oz Artisan Ginger Beer
Add purée and lime to a glass filled with ice, top with vodka and ginger beer, and serve with a slice of pitahaya as a garnish.
Nutritional and Health Benefits of Dragon Fruit
Aside from flavor, there are a number of health and nutritional reasons for integrating dragon fruit into the diet. They are low calorie, low fat, yet high in complex carbohydrates, resulting in a steady boost of energy after eating. Pitahayas are also dense with essential nutrients like Iron (8%), Magnesium (18%), Vitamin C (9%), and Vitamin E (4%), representing a significant portion of recommended daily intake with a single one-cup serving.
Dragon fruit are also probiotic and high in fiber, helping with digestion and gut health, and contain three key antioxidants that help reduce bad cholesterol, increase blood health, and bring slight boosts to natural antibodies within the blood.
This high nutrient density, combined with the pitahaya’s versatile flavor, makes the dragon fruit a welcome asset to any chef’s pantry, especially now, while the fruit are ripe and in season. Keep an eye out for the fruit at restaurants, supermarkets, and farmers’ markets around the region.