There’s a guava tree in my garden. I’m not a fan. The fruit is loaded with disagreeable little seeds. On the way to the compost bin I glanced up at its branches bending under the weight of ripe abundance and felt judged. In these strange times, why wasn’t I utilizing a natural source of nutrition that required nothing more than the energy to pluck it?
So pluck I did, out of guilt, then probed the internet for a recipe that would turn it into something edible. And there it was. Guava cheese.
In regard to cheese, I’m a solid thumbs down on Velveeta and varieties that fail the ‘smell’ test. Otherwise I’ll try anything. Guava cheese piqued my curiosity.
The instructions called for two ingredients, guava pulp and sugar, in almost equal amounts.
I wavered. Some people are sweets addicts. Some prefer salty treats. I’m the latter. But in the dark recesses of my refrigerator were two atrophying lumps of palm sugar left over from a brunch buffet (a year ago?) when it had been sprinkled atop banana fritters. Getting rid of the sugar while assuaging my guilt over the garden guavas had the intriguing potential of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
The entire process took an hour – that’s when I decided to quit stirring. But when I poured the hot sticky mess into a buttered pan to harden I had doubts. At 93% humidity, a temperature hovering upwards of 85 degrees (29.4 Celsius) and a 90% chance of rain in Ubud, the so-called cheese was a long way from solid with little hope of achieving the desired outcome.
Six hours later its consistency hadn’t changed. It seemed I’d made a batch of guava paste. I invited my neighbor for tea to sample my efforts.
We’re in isolation, me upstairs, her downstairs. We haven’t been off the property for many days. In a world where people eye each other suspiciously and pass giving wide berth, it’s a comfort having someone to interact with semi-normally knowing that neither of us carries the dreaded virus.
She accepted my invitation.
At the appointed time, Kaye arrived and seated herself at the table. “So this is guava cheese?” she said, poking suspiciously at the uncheese-like substance. “It looked different in the pictures you showed me. Like fudge – you could pick it up and…”
What could I say? She was right. “Yes, yes. Maybe think of it as guava butter and just taste it.” She spread a dollop on a cracker and took a tentative bite.
“What do you think?” I asked. She chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.
“Hmmm.”
Her hmmms can mean anything, hmmm good, hmmm bad, hmmm-I-don’t-want-to-disappoint-you-but…
“Well?”
A look of surprise crossed her face. “It’s really quite good, isn’t it?” she said.
We decided it resembled cranberry sauce and would be a tasty accompaniment to turkey – or spread on top of cheesecake – or with real cheese and crackers. Before she left we’d polished off the lot.
Even though my failed guava cheese was a hit, I don’t think I’ll be wasting my energy making it again anytime soon.
The only other edible growth in the garden is a chili plant.
There’s no guesswork involved with those little firecrackers. What you see is what you get, hot, hotter, and hottest in direct proportion to the amount added, no blending, straining or endless stirring required.
I’ll leave guavas to birds and squirrels. Going forward, chilies will be my guilt-assuaging choice.
writing for self-discovery 
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