PAW PAW FRUIT
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The Pawpaw: Foraging For America's Forgotten Fruit
So what the heck is a PAWPAW?
Recently, I heard about a secret snack. Kayakers who paddle the waters near Washington, D.C., told me about a mango-like fruit that grows along the banks of the Potomac — a speckled and homely skin that hides a tasty treat.
A tropical-like fruit here, really? Yep. It's the only temperate member of a tropical family of trees. You can't buy the pawpaw in stores, so for years, the only way to eat them was straight from the tree.
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D.C. nature guide showed me how to find them.
We took the on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. "Wow," was the first word out of my mouth when I tasted one we found on our hike. It's sort of mango-meets-the-banana ... with a little hint of melon.
Although you may not have heard of it, the pawpaw has quite a history. Thomas Jefferson had pawpaws at Monticello. And when he was in 1786, he had pawpaw seeds shipped over to friends there. He probably wanted to impress his friends with something exotic from America.
Lewis and Clark in their journals that they were quite fond of the pawpaw. At one point during their expedition in 1806, they relied on pawpaws when other provisions ran low. And from Michigan to West Virginia, people have even named towns and lakes after the pawpaw.
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But the pawpaw has only recently been commercialized. That's one reason you don't see it in the grocery store. So far, there are just a few orchards selling to farmers markets. This progress is largely thanks to the work of plant scientist .
He has spent the past 35 years breeding the pawpaw to make it look and taste more like a fruit we'd buy. He has selected and grown varieties that are bigger, with more flesh. After tasting his first wild pawpaw 35 years ago, he had a eureka moment.
"It was just a revelation," he says. Peterson thought that the pawpaw was every bit the rival of a perfect peach or apple — fruits that have had thousands of years of breeding.
Why hadn't someone done this with the pawpaw? "I could just instantly make that leap of imagination," he says.
Plant scientist Neal Peterson has documented
pawpaws extensively — both wild varieties and his cultivated versions.
This photo from the 1990s shows a cluster of fruit hanging from a tree.
And some three decades later, he has a lot to show for it. His pawpaws are being grown in a few orchards and sold at farmers markets. And now it's moving beyond novelty. A food scientist at Ohio University, , is interested in studying the nutrients in the pawpaw. So far, he has published one study that found the antioxidant count in the fruit to be pretty high. "It's about the same as a cranberry" or a cherry, Brannan says.
If scientists could put a "health halo" over the pawpaw, Brannan says, it would give the fruit a commercial boost. It's happened before. , anyone?
"Yum — wonderful flavor," Joan Foster said after tasting her first pawpaw at the Olney Farm Market recently. She has been waiting a long time to try one. They're only available a few weeks out of the year — and this year's pawpaw season is just about over.
So if you're intrigued, come back again tomorrow for a few tips on where you can find pawpaw beer, pawpaw sorbet ... and pawpaw recipes.
- The scientific name is Asimina triloba (L.) Dunal.
- The pawpaw belongs to the Annonaceae, the Custard Apple family, a large family of trees, shrubs and lianas that are widespread throughout the Old and New World tropics.
- Some of the finest fruits in the world belong to the tropical Annonaceae: namely cherimoya, guanabana (also called soursop), sweetsop, and custard apple.
- The genus Asimina is endemic to the temperate deciduous forests of eastern North America, and contains seven other species besides A. triloba.
- A. triloba is a wholly temperate-climate species, the northernmost ranging and hardiest of the Asimina, which makes it unique among the Annonaceae.
- A. triloba is the largest edible native fruit of North America. The other Asimina do not have fruit as large or as delicious.
- A. triloba is almost the last tree to leaf out in spring, a trait reflecting its tropical origins. Although the young leaves often appear chlorotic, this is only temporary.
- Pawpaws and nuts fed the Lewis & Clark expedition on their return trip in the fall of 1810 when in western Missouri their rations ran low and no game was to be found.
- James A. Little wrote (1905) "We can never realize what a great blessing the pawpaw was to the first settlers while they were clearing the great natural forest and preparing to build cabins. Planting fruit trees was rather an experiment for a number of years. The pawpaw and a few other wild fruits of less value, were all their dependence so far as fruit was concerned. Well do I remember sixty or more years ago my father would take his gun and basket and go to the woods and return in the evening loaded with pawpaws, young squirrel, and sometimes mushrooms of which he was very fond. But there will never be a recurrence of those days which were the happiest of my life."
- The folk song Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch celebrates unselfconsciously the prominence of the pawpaw in the lives of pioneers who settled the valleys of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and the greater Ohio River territory.
- Many places in the US were named after pawpaw: Paw Paw, WV; Paw Paw, MI; Paw Paw, KY; Paw Paw, OK, to name a few; and some townships in Illinois and Ohio and Indiana.
- Pawpaw has a high nutritional value.
- The water content is relatively low, 75%, comparable to banana. Most fruits have water content of 85%.
- Pawpaw's nutritional value exceeds that of apples, peaches and grapes in vitamins, minerals, amino acids and calories. (See table at Kentucky State University website.)
- Antioxidants (flavonoids, etc.) are probably present in the fruit but their quality and quantity have not been studied.
- The pawpaw tree contains many bioactive compounds that may be either beneficial or toxic in the human diet, depending on the amount consumed by the individual, and on an individual's sensitivity.
- The bark and seeds are high in acetogenins, potent compounds that are poisonous to most insect feeders and many fungi, and that are also potent anticarcinogens. The leading researcher on acetogenins has been Dr. J. L. McLaughlin, formerly of Purdue University.
Pawpaw Recipes
- Many of the most distinctive components of pawpaw flavor are highly volatile. Therefore, the best pawpaw
recipes are those involving little or no heating. Here are a few.
- Pawpaw bread
- Pawpaw chiffon pie
- Pawpaw muffins
- Pawpaw ice cream
- A great deal of research has been and is being conducted by Kentucky State University where there is a
full time pawpaw research program under the
direction of Dr. Kirk Pomper.
- Their site contains an excellent bibliography
- Areas of research at KSU and other institutions include:
- breeding
- gemination
- propagation
- genetic analysis
- fruit postharvest physiology
- orchard management
- culinary uses
- Regional variety trials sites
- At 12 sites around the country 28 pawpaw cultivars are being tested. We are still years away from having enough data from these trials to reach conclusions about what the best cultivars are for different areas of the country. For a map of the sites click here. The sites are shown as blue dots; the pawpaw native range is shown in red.
For questions regarding paw paws email: neal@petersonpawpaws.com
For Cape Cod Paw Paw Seedlings
Contact
Dan or Amy Corrigan 508-432-2435
d@acircle.com
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