“The most neglected of American fruits”

February 23, 2024 12:53 AM

Until the mid 1800s, pawpaws were strictly a foraged food due to their woodland abundance. Indigenous people and enslaved Africans ate them as part of their seasonal diets, and the recorded anecdotes of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Daniel Boone describe subsisting on the native fruits during their journeys through the wilderness. Eventually, pawpaws, or custard apples as they were sometimes called, were sold at market. Though cultivated by Indigenous tribes like the Shawnee, the pawpaw was relegated to a wild folk food eaten by impoverished rural people, earning nicknames like the “poor man’s banana” and the “hillbilly banana.” from Consider the Pawpaw [Belt]

Previously: Pawpaws: Why Is the Most American Fruit So Hard to Buy? and Pawpaw season

posted by chavenet (50 comments total)

Note for non-Americans: this isn't what we call a pawpaw—that's what Americans call the papaya, Carica papaya. Their pawpaw is a whole different thing.
posted by rory at 1:14 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]

(That seems ambiguous when I read it back. I mean that the UK/Aust./South Pacific pawpaw is what Americans know as the papaya. This American pawpaw is a different fruit... one that I've never eaten, personally, as it doesn't seem to have travelled.)
posted by rory at 1:24 AM on February 23 [9 favorites]

I've eaten pawpaws and also their cousin the cherimoyas. They are delicious fruit and both were regular things I ate with my family in Mexico.

In general, the variety of fruits eaten in Mexico always struck me as so much broader than what Americans eat. Papayas of course which have made it north but also Guava, Hawthorn berries (Tejocote), Guanabanas, Nisperos (an Asian fruit) not to mention non-fruits like Jicama, Chayote, Cactus are all hugely popular and eaten in salads and the like.

The reason pawpaws and all the others are hard to buy in the US is simply that they have not been properly marketed to people. My family in Mexico has always eaten a lot of avocados but avocado consumption in the US only went up (and it has gone up 8-fold since the 90s!) because of marketing campaigns that persuaded people that yes, you should try this strange thing. It is actually pretty good.
posted by vacapinta at 2:05 AM on February 23 [6 favorites]

I've still never tried one but we've got two young trees in the backyard getting bigger and healthier all the time and this might finally be the year.
posted by saladin at 3:34 AM on February 23 [4 favorites]

Pawpaws are very delicious, but I think part of the problem with widespread consumption is that they do not travel well at all from what I've seen. They bruise easily, and don't last very long once ripe.
posted by mollweide at 3:43 AM on February 23 [20 favorites]

And I should plug Chesterfield Organic Orchards, just a bit south of Trenton, New Jersey. Farmers Jim and Sherry worked for decades in community supported agriculture here, and have gotten out of that business to focus exclusive on growing organic fruit and a few vegetables. One of their pet projects is native tree crops, so they grow pawpaws, American persimmons, and hybridized American chestnuts.
posted by mollweide at 4:16 AM on February 23 [5 favorites]

I love foraging for pawpaws here in Virginia. They are extremely tasty - like a mix between mango and banana. I usually try to eat a few each season, either foraged when hiking or bought at a farmers market. You also have to fight the local wildlife for them!

But I can totally see why they haven’t been commercially grown. They are only good when perfectly ripe, the skins bruise, very easily, and the seeds take up a very big portion of the interior (so they are hard to eat). They also have a laxative effect, so you can’t eat more than a few at a time.

I actually really like that there is some type of fruit like this still available in the over-commercialized world we live in. The paw paw fruit is tasty, but also the flowers are super cool. If I had a yard to plant them in, I totally would!
posted by gemmy at 4:24 AM on February 23 [9 favorites]

Serious Eats did a good piece on pawpaws late last year.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:29 AM on February 23 [2 favorites]

The reason pawpaws and all the others are hard to buy in the US is simply that they have not been properly marketed to people.

Also that they don’t travel well and the texture can be problematic for some people. My wife wants to like them but every time we’ve gotten some from a neighbor it’s been a disappointment for her. I think we should encourage more cultivation but I suspect it’s always going to be a regional thing rather than entering the global market.
posted by adamsc at 4:35 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]

I hope this isn't being too much of a wet blanket but I'd note that pawpaws (like soursop, custard apple, and sugar apple, their Annonaceae relatives) are mildly-to-moderately neurotoxic due to their annonacin content. It's pretty well established that habitual consumption of Annonaceae (fruit and tea made from their leaves) is related to the development of progressive supranuclear palsy, and there have been scattered case reports of Parkinson's-like illness in people who eat large amounts of pawpaw fruit.

I enjoy pawpaws once or twice in a good year, basically when I stumble on a ripe one in the woods (I spend a lot of time in the woods), and even planted a few trees in my yard (they have super cool flowers). But I think it's okay that they're not commercialized.
posted by pullayup at 4:39 AM on February 23 [16 favorites]

When pawpaw is cooked, consumption can cause stomach ache. As me and my coworkers how I know. Found several anecdotal reports after the fact. I still enjoy them fresh, avoiding the pulp closest to the skin which is bitter, and likely where the undesirable compounds are concentrated.
posted by gray17 at 5:00 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

rory: what Americans call the papaya, Carica papaya
Just so you know which custard-apple you're about to eat:

• Asimina triloba pawpaw [of which we treat] or custard apple
• Annona cherimola cherimoya or custard apple
• Annona muricata guanábana, soursop or custard apple
• Annona reticulata ox heart, bullock's heart or custard apple
• Annona senegalensis wild custard-apple
• Annona squamosa sugar apple, sweetsop or custard apple
• Cananga odorata ylang-ylang Not custard apple but same family Annonaceae

Call me a wimp but with pullayup noting the annonacin content, I'll continue to neglect these bad boys.
posted by BobTheScientist at 5:06 AM on February 23 [5 favorites]

I hike the Turkey Hill trail near Lancaster PA and it was through one of the largest pawpaw groves in the US. Since it was early October, there were loads of pawpaws on the trees, and several people brought some home. I have a few trees that we planted in our backyard-the flowers are amazing, but it took years before we had fruit. We have some bonus trees via suckering, so you may end up with a pawpaw patch over time.
posted by childofTethys at 5:37 AM on February 23 [4 favorites]

Haven't tried the pawpaw, but chirimoyas are my jam during the summer here in Chile. Just got back from Colombia, the guanábana juice was delicious.
posted by signal at 5:43 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

I find them all the time in Kentucky, Tennessee, and southern Indiana. Once ripe, they don't last long, and there's competition from the local wild critters as well. Texture is sort of like a cross between a mango and a gooey banana.
posted by bwvol at 5:48 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

I love them but yeah, they're only really ripe and ready for a matter of a couple days and not easy to transport.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:57 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

Call me a wimp but with pullayup noting the annonacin content, I'll continue to neglect these bad boys.

One of the studies and the Wikipedia page for annonacin note that the level of consumption comparable to the dosage that produced neurological lesions in rodents was on the order of a whole soursop or full can of soursop nectar each day for a year. And the fellow who (probably) gave himself progressive supranuclear palsy had a pawpaw "orchard" and was, according to his wife, eating on the order of 13.6 kg/ 30 lbs of fruit per year for a full decade. Notably, pawpaw contains something like double the annonacin vs. soursop, but any way you slice it, this fellow was eating A LOT of pawpaw. The only fruit I can eat 30 lbs per year of is the (ubiquitous but varied and versatile) apple, and I don't think I'd even come close to that if I wasn't buying them by the bushel in season and cooking them into pies, crumbles, dressing, etc. US per capita apple consumption is around 15 lbs/year.

So, while these are not huge quantities, I think it's also probably fine to indulge occasionally. Just don't go overboard.
posted by pullayup at 5:58 AM on February 23 [17 favorites]

Back in the day, I'd get pawpaws from around my cabin in West Virginia on the weekend and would have to rush them back to Baltimore early on Monday morning to get them to my coworkers in time, since their shelf life was hours, not days. I'm sure there's all sorts of things wrong with them, but they're that sort of thing that Westerners can't really comprehend anymore—a treat that you enjoy rarely, like the days when The Wizard of Oz would air annually on television and just once, which makes them all the more special and wonderful. I've got a pair of trees in my yard back home, but time will tell if they connect properly to produce fruit. I may need to move my writing shed if they do, so I'm not surrounded by rotting fruit and pissy yellowjackets.

My WV-born-and-raised fiancé enjoys them more than me, and (semi-self-promoting link warning) went so far as to title his old-time band's most recent title track and album after them, but our master baker friend nailed the perfect pawpaw treat (beyond pawpaw ice cream, which is pretty delectable)—looking at the pulp our pal was pulping for other purposes, I mused that you could probably make a pawpaw meringue pie with that, and she whipped up a set of little pawpaw meringue pies and boy oh boy are those things the absolute end. After the first couple batches, where she toned down the sugar, they really work well, though you need to work from a southern lemon meringue recipe and not that astringent Lemon Pledge™ horror that is a so-called lemon meringue pie from north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Such a neat little thing, a pawpaw. Plus, if you throw a past-it pawpaw at an unsuspecting friend, it's even funnier than a well-aimed acorn or snowball.
posted by sonascope at 6:11 AM on February 23 [6 favorites]

"custard apples", I hadn't heard that before, love it. They are definitely on the custard spectrum.

I love pawpaws! They maybe taste like if caramel and a mango and an avocado had a baby? They grew cultivated and wild where in lived in Pennsylvania. The wild ones were very seedy but still pretty good. The cultivated ones were fantastic, and had varied flavors depending on variety, like apples.

My impression was the fact that they store and travel poorly is why we don't see them in grocery stores, which is a shame. Also having to have two trees for pollination makes them a bit more complex for home cultivators. Everyone I knew in PA was hand-pollinating their trees, which was a lot of work! I suppose we didn't have enough of the right flies or beetles to rely on them?
posted by cnidaria at 6:18 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

My partner loves them and we've talked about trying to grow a few after our big move in a few months to Canada. Pawpaws grow best in USDA Hardiness Zones 5-8, and Nova Scotia is zones 5 and 6, so it sounds possible. We might do containers so we can baby them a bit in winter but we haven't really looked into it yet.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:26 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

The Turkey Hill Trail, mentioned above, is the site of a pawpaw forest. I went once, thinking it was a little grove of fruit trees. I looked up and found myself surrounded by pawpaws, fruit thunking to the ground and ascent of banana caramel wafting up from the ground. Did I stand there and eat? I did! Did I haul home a bag of fruit? I did! Did I clean some seeds and throw them in the fridge? I did, and then started them the next spring. I have baby tres now, company for the pawpaw saplings I sent away for years ago. It took six or seven years for them to bear fruit, so I am hopeful.

The pawpaw is such a funny object: imagine a potato in your hand, thin dark yellow skin bruising to a greenish purple if you look at it sideways. You can squeeze it and feel it shift in your hand. Cut it lengthwise from the side, and that caramel-banana scent rises up. Scoop out a spoonful of custard-consistency innards (bruising the exterior as you do, because you’re trying to keep your grip on it). Avoid the hilariously ancient seeds, fat and brown and as big as nickels. Eat.

They’re a local seasonal treat, though I have spent hours scooping the flesh out for freezing. Pawpaw bread is fine? Not a patch on persimmon bread though. Pawpaws are for fresh eating if you’re lucky enough. They’ll hold in the fridge for a little bit, as long as you don’t mind everything in it smelling like banana-caramel.

My established trees are producing suckers for new trees, and I secretly hope they take over the hill they’re on. They’re bare now but soon they’ll sprout crimson blossoms of fruit to come. I like these plucky, hardy, fussy-fruit trees. If you ever have a chance to eat a pawpaw, enjoy the fleeting sweetness and think of what it took to make it.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:30 AM on February 23 [6 favorites]

Hmmm... American carrion flowers.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:38 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

In second grade we had a folk dancing unit.

♫Picking up paw-paws
Put them in your pocket
Picking up paw-paws
Put them in your pocket
Picking up paw-paws
Put them in your pocket
Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.♫
posted by Melismata at 6:38 AM on February 23 [9 favorites]

Thanks for that clarification you posted, pullayup. After reading the studies you had linked I was about to post the same info re: daily consumption. One of the studies pullayup links also mentioned higher levels of meat and poultry consumption as risk factors for the same type of illness. Any food can be a poison if you eat enough of it.

If you want to try growing pawpaw trees in your own garden, for optimal fruit production, you'll want to plant two trees from genetically distinct stock for cross pollination purposes. As mentioned above, pawpaws send out suckers to form clonal colonies. Kind of like Pando, but smaller. So if you see several pawpaw trees together in the same general space they might actually all be clones of the parent tree, and clones can't cross-pollinate one another.

Starting pawpaws from seed can be challenging because to achieve a decent germination rate, the seeds need to be placed straight from the fruit into a cold damp environment and kept there for a couple of months. If you let the seeds dry out at all before they sprout, the germination rate drops dramatically. And if you don't keep the seeds cold for a season (to simulate a winter in their native climate) they basically just won't sprout. I have friends who are very experienced gardeners who have struggled to get pawpaw seeds to grow for this reason. One told me he had better luck letting several fruits ferment with the seeds inside and then scattering the fruit on the ground than he did trying to start them using artificial indoor cold stratification methods. (Despite his advice, I have pawpaw seeds stratifying in a container of damp soil in my fridge right now. We'll see what happens. )

If you aren't super into seed starting as a hobby, it's probably best to buy young seedlings from a nursery specializing in American native plants or a conservation organization. I got the trees that are currently planted in my yard as seedlings from my state department of conservation.

There are also some pawpaw specialists out there working on cultivars bred to have a better shelf life, better fruit production, etc.

Regardless of where you acquire your pawpaw trees or how you start them, they benefit from shade in early life because they are forest understory trees. If you're looking for a fruit tree that will grow in a shady spot they're a great choice.

Pawpaws don't just feed people: they are the primary host plant for the zebra swallowtail butterfly.
posted by BlueJae at 6:41 AM on February 23 [9 favorites]

There is a single orchard in Rhode Island that has them (Rocky Point Farm), and I have gotten bags of them a couple of times.

“At the market we cut pieces and let people taste them,” says Rocky Point pawpaw farmer Mark Garrison (shown left). “The first expression is puzzlement, then they say, ‘Oh! That’s good!’ Or a reluctant ‘OK,’” notes the farmer, who owns 40 acres of pawpaw and blueberry bushes just a stone’s throw from Narragansett Bay.

-- source with punny headline; my emphasis

I love the taste, and I agree that the texture is almost like pudding.

I have two small bags in my freezer of the "whoops, these will be spoiled tomorrow!" leftovers: I plan to thaw them and put them into a batch of cider or mead.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:41 AM on February 23 [2 favorites]

I planted one about 5 years ago. It's grown to about 10' tall, but only bore a single fruit last year which disappeared mysteriously. Now that I know they'll do well, as Bluejae says I should probably add 1 or 2 more. I got mine from a local nursery but have also been scouting for them in the wild, figuring I could grab some windfall before (ha) the critters do. They're pretty trees, too.
posted by jquinby at 6:50 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]

Two years ago I looked into ordering some pawpaw fruit online. $40 for three pounds of fruit. I'm feeling a little crazy so I check how much shipping is. $60. I decided I did not want to pay one hundred dollars for three pounds of fruit.
posted by ockmockbock at 6:57 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]

I think part of the problem with widespread consumption is that they do not travel well at all from what I've seen. They bruise easily, and don't last very long once ripe.

This is the problem with a lot of otherwise wonderful fruit. Saskatoon berries, which grow both wild and cultivated here in the Canadian prairies and aspen parkland regions, are almost impossible to purchase. You can get saskatoon pie, syrup, juice and so on, but actually buying fresh berries is nearly impossible because they don't travel well and don't last long at all once they're ripe. If you want fresh saskatoons, you pretty much have to grow or forage them yourself.

Similarly, this is one reason (among many others, often involving politics and monocropping) that there is basically only one variety of bananas available for purchase outside of places where bananas are grown: most varieties simple don't travel well.

Note for non-Americans: this isn't what we call a pawpaw—that's what Americans call the papaya

English is weird. Here in Canada, we also refer to those as papaya, but we don't have pawpaws (of the sort discussed in the FPP), as they don't grow this far north.
posted by asnider at 8:34 AM on February 23 [2 favorites]

Add me to the list of people who only know about pawpaws from singing about the pawpaw patch in grade school,

The only other song I remember from that module was Rock Island Line.
posted by thecjm at 8:53 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]

The podcast Gastropod did a full episode on pawpaws within the last few years.
posted by suelac at 8:57 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

Melismata

That song popped into my head a few days ago. How odd.
posted by Windopaene at 8:58 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

The 'paws sound like and look like they should be good, but they have a flavor of turpentine to me.

...chirimoyas are my jam...
Really? Can you make jam for serious?

Now when you pick a pawpaw
Or a prickly pear
And you prick a raw paw
Well, next time beware
Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw
When you pick a pear
Try to use the claw
But you don't need to use the claw
When you pick a pair of the big pawpaw
posted by BlueHorse at 9:28 AM on February 23 [9 favorites]

I'm not sure about the rest of Canada but pawpaw trees are found in southern Ontario at least. I happened upon one right about here in Toronto, in the beautiful Arts & Crafts enclave of Wychwood Park which is unfortunately too exclusive for streetview.
posted by Flashman at 9:55 AM on February 23 [2 favorites]

We eat a lot of pawpaws around here - as well as mayapples (when they're ripe and we can get them). Mayapples are a bit like fugu so sort everything out before you dive in.

Pawpaws are cool because they are one of the last trees to drop their leaves in the fall. Despite their size they are really hard to spot when they're ripe so it's helpful to know where they're growing before you tramp through a swamp looking for 'em.

They've got big, droopy yellow leaves. Sort of like some kind of hickory. Anyway, the takeaway is that if you go out to where you suspect pawpaws after the trees have dropped their leaves they're easy to spot. Look for groves of medium-height trees covered with droopy yellow leaves surrounded by naked trees.

And the word for this is marcescence. Now you've got yourself a custard apple and a new word. Congratulations!
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:19 AM on February 23 [5 favorites]

The trees that have the best/most fruit are also often the tallest. Once we spot one with fruit, we shake the base and the ripe ones will drop to the ground.
posted by bwvol at 11:03 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

I used to pick these in southern Michigan when my friends and I found them in the woods. We never ate more than a little bit each, but I do recall thinking it was neat to find a fruit most people didn't even try.

They won't grow in my area (a little too cold for optimal) but I am now reminded that I hoped to plant some berries as groundcover in my yard, so I ought to get on that...
posted by caution live frogs at 11:05 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

I don't know if this is what the essay title was trying to make me think of, but

The basic scenario is that we come in from the store and make our little preparations like getting the kettle filled and boiling, and then we lift the pawpaws out of the bag or whatever retail container they came home in... whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen. However stuporous the pawpaw is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the pawpaw will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof. And worse is when the pawpaw’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the pawpaw tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The pawpaw, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming).¹⁵
posted by aws17576 at 11:49 AM on February 23 [6 favorites]

I ate pawpaws once. It was very juicy and sweet, but the one I was given was nearing its expiration date and a bit too mushy for my sensibilities (very sensitive to texture of food). But people around here love them. But they go from fine to rotten in a short period of time.
posted by bluesky43 at 11:52 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

I've wanted to eat a pawpaw for quite a while but haven't had the chance to stumble upon them in the wild or at a grocery store. I even bought 4 seedlings for a friend to plant at his place as he had a couple of acres of land and was already planting other fruit and nut trees. Sadly the seedlings got eaten by deer within a year and that friend has passed away and I don't know how long his family will stay in that house for so I'll need to find some other place where I can plant pawpaw trees.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:26 PM on February 23 [1 favorite]

I am currently building a house in what should be prime pawpaw habitat; may need to include a few of them in my landscaping.
posted by TedW at 12:45 PM on February 23 [3 favorites]

Please stop thinking about the pawpaw. Pretend it never existed and you've never heard of it. Do not go looking for it. And for the love of all that is holy, stay away from my secret pawpaw tree which appears to only be known to me, since I seem to be the only person harvesting it. Seriously, stop thinking about the pawpaw right now.
posted by OrangeDisk at 12:56 PM on February 23 [12 favorites]

My favorite pawpaw memory is not of the fruit but the Paw Paw Tunnel on the historic C&O Canal. It is located near Paw Paw West Virginia. It was a very nice hike, back in the day some decades ago.

The tunnel was dug out of the mountain, using picks and shovels. It was lined with millions of bricks. At least when I visited, the tunnel had no lights. There is a waterway for the canal boats and a tow path for the mules. An oak railing separated the two, and that was good because it was dark in there. The oak was polished smooth by the tow ropes, back in the mule powered days. Enter the tunnel and walk the tow path, as the light dims behind you. Continue walking, while feeling the reassurance of the rail under your hand. Eventually the literal light at the end of the tunnel begins to appear. Depending on how bright it is, you may have to continue to rely on the railing because you can't see anything but the distant sunshine.

Take the tunnel path back, or the trail up over the top.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 3:07 PM on February 23 [5 favorites]

The Rock Island Line she's mighty good road...
posted by Windopaene at 3:51 PM on February 23 [1 favorite]

Zingerman's makes a paw paw gelato from time to time.
posted by praemunire at 4:27 PM on February 23 [3 favorites]

Not everyone knows what a pawpaw is. Until more recently, it has been discarded and forgotten, falling in and out of favor over the years.

Except for the perennial articles about this "forgotten" fruit.

2009: An American Fruit You Haven't Tried

2011: The Pawpaw: Foraging For America's Forgotten Fruit

2013: Pawpaw: The Tropical-Tasting Fruit You’ve Never Heard Of

2015: How did Americans forget about the pawpaw?


2016: The Best American Fruit You've Never Eaten
posted by Panjandrum at 4:57 PM on February 23 [10 favorites]

The ft Osage visitors center claims that they grow in NW MO.

I remember the paw paw patch song in the class songbook in grade school before proposition 13 scrapped those lessons.
posted by brujita at 6:47 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]

Paw Paw Michigan by the Paw Paw River named so by the Native people.

"The town was the home of African American cookbook author Malinda Russell who published the first known cookbook by a black woman in the United States. She lived in Paw Paw after she fled her Tennessee home, which was raided by traveling gangs of whites in 1864. Her book Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen, as a means to provide income for her and her son and earn money to return to Greeneville, Tennessee. Russell self-published her book, in 1866, giving a brief history of her life...."

"The pawpaw, also called the Michigan banana, Hoosier banana or poor man's banana."
posted by clavdivs at 7:14 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]

Brujita, pawpaws grow all across Missouri and are a really important part of forest ecosystems statewide, but their forest understory habitat is severely threatened by human development and by the spread of invasive bush honeysuckle and invasive Callery pear, which are taking over forests across the state.

I have very fond childhood memories of walking through forests filled with sassafras, pawpaw, native persimmons, hickories, wild plums, wild blackberry, wild grapes, and all manner of beautiful woodland wildflowers. But it's rare to see places like that in Missouri now. And the ones that remain now have to be defended constantly against invasive ornamental plants.

(If you want to feel like you're living in a real life horror movie, teach yourself to identify bush honeysuckle from a distance and then keep your eyes open when you're traveling around Missouri. Yikes.)
posted by BlueJae at 5:08 AM on February 24 [1 favorite]

A decade ago I was at a beer tasting with friends and tried a beer flavored with pawpaw. It was very good. They also had some cut-up pawpaw, and one of my friends tried it. She gave a half-retch and started laughing, then yelled "it tastes like semen!" Several others tried it and agreed. I should have tried it but I was less adventurous back then. A quick search for "pawpaw semen" reveals this is a common opinion.
posted by Tehhund at 4:43 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

My first exposure to wild pawpaw was along a mid Atlantic section of the Appalachian Trail, so they are out there as understory trees. We grew up enjoying wild fruit-but not really paw paws. Wild raspberries made excellent pie and jam, if you could abide or strain seeds-and now we know that they are invasive wineberry. We went out with my dad to collect some native persimmons further along a nearby stream but it was a much taller tree than a pawpaw and as a kid, I didn’t care for the taste. While I grew up close to a river, near land cleared for fields, we benefit from being on woodsy hills near a state park and are happy to reintroduce natives. Invasives can be a horror show, and are a lot of work to keep at bay.
posted by childofTethys at 7:30 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]