— A Passion fruit cocktail recipe
Passionista, aka the devil wore vodka
Passion fruit is native to Brazil, but I first bought a seedling at a garden show in South Los Angeles. The plant thrived in my garden. The purple fruit were like Easter eggs in spring, and the vines intertwined with my blackberries. Combining the two fruits yielded a magical mixture of tart and sweet.
Passion fruit has deep roots in Brazil
Most won’t think of Jesus when contemplating a passion fruit.16th-century Catholic missionaries in Brazil, however, imagined resemblances between the plant’s anatomy and Christ’s crucifixion. The vine’s spreading tendrils mirrored the outstretched arms of Christ on the cross. The flower’s central spikes looked like his crown of thorns, and the stigma like the 3 nails that held him on the cross. Passion comes from Latin, meaning to suffer. Except ‘Jesus-Christ-Suffered Fruit’ doesn’t have a good ring to it and a lot of folks might feel guilty putting it in a cocktail!
Passion fruit packs a punch with vitamins
Humans don’t absorb iron from plants very well. In fact, health professionals often tell patients to take vitamin C alongside iron supplements to help the body absorb the iron. Passion fruit comes with both benefits in a tidy little package, plus a healthy dose of fiber on the side. Here’s a statistic, almost all Americans fail to get enough fiber in their diets. This shortfall even has a name, ‘The fiber gap’.
Song to Sip to while enjoying the passion fruit cocktail –
Doja Cat – Paint The Town Red.
