MARY DALTON
NZ
from In the Cracks of the City ****** 3
Freedom; Merrymeeting Road On the old St. Pat‘s ground the big Sobey‘s sits. Its slogan: New Food Ideas. Piled in a barrel, the pitahayas, just down from the persimmons and ugli fruit. Six ninety-nine and you can bring home the tropics, home to your table. In Sobey‘s today it‘s colder than cold, a refrigerator zone. Outside it‘s the same. No possible adjustment: the air-system‘s run from Halifax. They turn the lights on and off, too, says the clerk who has to think twice about buying bananas, even in season, on her non-unionized wage. The pitahaya has a pale beet skin with flanges like an armadillo. A shape like a big pear. When you cut into the gorgeous pink-red skin: watery white flesh, pitted with small black seeds. The flesh tastes like nothing, but for some reason you feel an unease, the way you did when once you ate shark meat. Maybe it will taste better chilled. ***
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