Pawpaws

This is the the season for pawpaws in southern Ohio.  They grow all over the place, but very few people collect them.  The vast majority of people who grow up in Ohio have either never hear of them before or have heard of them, but never tasted them.

I love going out in the woods and collecting food.  A lot of people like their food from the supermarket, clean, wrapped up, and with a price tag, but not me.  The closer the food is to the earth it grows from, the better.  Going out in the woods and collecting food feels to me like getting to know my ancestors, reconnecting with the earlier humanity..

So what the heck is a pawpaw?  Well, I describe it as looking like a green potato that grows on trees.  The flesh ranges from white to bright yellow and tastes similar to banana custard or mango puree.  It is funny that the fruit is so variable.  You find some that have firm white flesh and they are pretty bland.  Others are really moist and oily and also not the best.  The really good ones are deep yellow and creamy, dessert in your hand.

I usually cook with pawpaws.  Even the best ones are not something I can eat a pile of, but they are great to use in any dish in place of banana.  I will frequently make pawpaw custard, pawpaw bread pudding, pawpaw cookies, and other goodies.  The flavor is far more complex than a banana with more spicy notes.

Here are some good recipes: http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/pawpaw/recipes.htm  

 Here is the inside of a good one.  There are a ton of really big black seeds that are surrounded by the yellow flesh.  Plop them in your mouth, suck the fruit off, and spit 'em out.

Here are the leaves of the tree.  The trees are in virtually every forest, but they don't typically have fruit.  If you bruise the leaf with your fingers, you get a bad aroma.  This is a positive ID for a pawpaw tree.

Pawpaw frequently grown in bunches, like bananas.

Here is a bowl of pawpaw pulp.  You can see the light and dark flesh from different fruits mixed together.  Pulping takes some time, as you have to remove the skin, then depulp the seeds.  I used my finger nail to break the membrane around the seed, then peel off the flesh.  I freeze the pulp and puree it before I cook with it.  Looks like scrambled eggs.  Pawpaws are messy.