On the Hunt for the Elusive Pawpaw  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Sporkful]] - Full Title: On the Hunt for the Elusive Pawpaw - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/07be7016-44e9-4169-808a-7cb4dd666af3 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Pawpaw's Native But Tropical Paradox** - Pawpaws are North America's largest native fruit with tropical-tasting relatives despite growing in temperate zones. - They are uncommon in stores because they spoil quickly and must be foraged or bought locally. Transcript: Dan Pashman She's an author, chef, and recipe developer, and she loves pawpaws so much that she offered to make the nine-hour drive from her home in Ohio to New York to introduce me to them. So what is this mysterious fruit? Why have I, and I suspect many of you, never heard of it? And what about it inspires an almost cultish following? As Sarah said in her email, pawpaws are the largest fruit native to North America. They've been around for as long as we have records from this part of the world. The Shawnee tribe has a month named after the pawpaw. Thomas Jefferson had them grown at Monticello. Lewis and Clark ate them on their famous expedition. And formerly enslaved people foraged and ate pawpaws on their way to freedom. When European colonists first encountered these fruits, they may have thought they were papayas. In fact, in some parts of the world, pawpaw is another name for papaya. But the North American pawpaw we're talking about today is a completely different fruit in a different family from the papaya. Ohio, West Virginia, and other parts of Appalachia are the heart of pawpaw country, but they grow as far west as Nebraska, up into Canada, down to Florida, and east to New York, where Sarah and I are today. ([Time 0:04:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8e144ac0-709b-4f67-9537-90507b5f14fb)) - **Seek Season And Festivals For Pawpaws** - Do forage in season: pawpaws ripen in September (sometimes into October) and are best fresh. - Check local pawpaw festivals or community lists to find fruit if you can't forage yourself. Transcript: Dan Pashman As we said, I can't tell you where Sarah and I are looking. That's a big no-no among foragers. But I will say that it took me nearly three hours to get from my house on Long Island to this spot. Which doesn't really tell you anything, because with traffic, that could be 200 miles or 20. ([Time 0:05:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/524d3f16-100b-4fac-ba57-922808e01541)) - **How One Pawpaw Sparked An Obsession** - Sara Bir discovered pawpaws after seeing a broken fruit on a trail and confirmed it by smell and taste. - That first bite launched her long-term obsession and led her to write a Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook. Transcript: Sara Bir And when we moved to Ohio, I was out in the woods around this time of year, and I saw this thing splayed open into the middle of the trail, just like smashed open, and it had these bright yellow Guts and these glistening black seeds. It looked like a spaceship had dropped it there. It looked like nothing I had ever seen in all of my years. So I picked it up and I smelled it and I thought, I bet this thing's a pawpaw. So when I revisited the spot and after having verified that it was indeed a pawpaw, it went back. I found another one that was not smashed open with ants on it. And I just stood there and ate it. I was like, what the heck? It was like nothing I'd ever tasted before. And so you can spend your whole life in a place where pawpaws grow and you're just not aware of them at all, which is kind of fun because once you are, it's like this whole other portal opens Up. ([Time 0:08:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9047e8a1-4436-49dd-8d16-8878b7871e72)) - **Why Pawpaws Rarely Reach Stores** - Pawpaw trees need specific micro-conditions: shade when young, more sun as they mature to fruit. - Their fruit doesn't store well, which limits commercial distribution and keeps them local and seasonal. Transcript: Dan Pashman People do grow them. Problem is, it's hard. The trees require specific conditions to fruit. Shade when they're small, sun when they're bigger. And then once the fruit is harvested, it doesn't keep well. So unlike, say, a red delicious apple that's been bred to last a long time after it's picked so it can be shipped to a store and sit on the shelf for a week, the pawpaw needs to be eaten within A few days. ([Time 0:21:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f4c93e43-0e21-4e16-a733-dd26d6630da0)) - **Pawpaws And Cultural Reconnection** - Rue (DeLesslyn George Warren) learned pawpaw significance while reconnecting Catawba language with land and plants. - He integrated pawpaw plantings into community food and cultural projects on reservation land. Transcript: Dan Pashman Is DeLesslyn George Warren, but most people call him by his nickname, Rue. Rue is a citizen of Catawba Nation, a federally recognized tribe with trust land in North and South Carolina. Rue started learning about pawpaws a few years ago. He grew up near the Catawba Reservation, then left to go to college and work in D.C. He moved back in 2017 to work with the tribe. Originally, he was focused on the Catawba language. Speaker 3 Coming back and working on the language, what I realized in diving into our language resources and the historical texts is that I couldn't know the language until I knew the land. And so that's when that started kind of expanding into understanding what are our native plants, what can we forage for, what are our agricultural traditions. ([Time 0:22:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eed1958e-eefa-42ae-9036-d0b7b38e207b)) - **Boost Pollination By Targeting Flies** - Try hand-pollinating or attract flies for pawpaw pollination because flowers lure flies, not bees. - Use detritus-based attractants or timed interventions to improve fruit set on planted trees. Transcript: Dan Pashman It'll be a few more years before the pawpaw trees flower. And then, in order for those flowers to become fruit, they need to be pollinated. That's another challenge. One that may require a more hands-on approach. Speaker 3 So, pollination of pawpaws is tricky because they rely on a different set of pollinators than what we're used to. When we're talking about pollinators, we're talking about a huge diversity of creatures. Not just the birds and the bees? Right. And for pawpaws, it's actually flies and other detritivores that fertilize them. So if you are unlucky enough to be walking through a pawpaw patch when they are flowering, you will notice a light rotting stench. And that is actually their flowers, which are kind of these crimson red cup-shaped things that are trying to attract flies to them. So you hear stories about pawpaw growers who will literally hang up rotting meat or rotting fish in their pawpaw patches to get more flies to be able to come to the patch and pollinate Dan Pashman Them. Well, you know, depends on what floats your pollinator's boat. Exactly. Whatever the pollinators are into. Have you thought about that first season when your pawpaw trees start to flower and you start to get fruit? ([Time 0:26:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0fdd878a-379d-4893-b6c2-f8b22bd87ff5)) - **Hunt Without Fruit But With Joy** - Dan and Sara searched a secret NYC-area pawpaw patch for nearly two hours and found many trees but no fruit. - They accepted the experience as part of foraging's uncertainty and still enjoyed finding saplings and mature trees. Transcript: Sara Bir Yeah, I feel very bad. Dan Pashman What? Go. Go. Let's go. Roll out. She sees something. Sarah sees something. Sara Bir We're going deeper into the woods. Sawgrass, which is invasive. But here we go. Here is a bigger one. Dan Pashman Yeah, like This is a big... Sara Bir When you're... This is... Dan Pashman Yes, this is a tree. This is an actual tree. Sara Bir How many feet tall would you say that is, Dan? I'm terrible at that kind of estimation. I mean, it's more... Dan Pashman I think it's more than double my height. So I would say it's like 14 feet tall. Sara Bir Yeah, this is... I would say this is like an average-sized mature pawpaw tree that you would run across in the woods. And then it has some baby pawpaws down here. Dan Pashman But I still don't see any fruit, right? Sara Bir Yes. No fruit here. What I'm doing right now is looking down because it's possible that, like, even a month ago this fruited. And then bloop, bloop, bloop, all the fruit dropped. But it's also possible somebody came and cleared it out because they had been keeping tabs on it. Like the Sarah Burr of where we are came and... Dan Pashman There's no other Sarah Burr. If Sarah finds seeds or scraps lying around, that would suggest the ripe pawpaws fell to the ground and animals ate them. But she finds nothing. Which means, more likely, either this tree didn't fruit this year, or someone beat us to it. There are a couple other fully grown pawpaw trees near this one, but it's the same story with each one. No fruit. ([Time 0:31:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9b76397c-adf0-4a3e-ac83-112843c56da2)) - **Handle Seeds And Drying With Caution** - Do remove and discard pawpaw seeds; they contain compounds that can induce vomiting in large amounts. - Avoid dehydrating large quantities since drying concentrates the compounds and raises risk. Transcript: Dan Pashman Did you bring a pawpaw? I did. Awesome. Sure, let's do it. Sara Bir Yeah, this is plan B. This is plan B for us bathing. Dan Pashman She's pulled out pawpaws wrapped in a paper towel. Sara Bir Yes, this is not how you find them in the wild, is wrapped in a paper towel. So I am looking for one. Dan Pashman So these are pawpaws that you foraged? Sara Bir These are from Ohio, yes. These do... I deliberately chose ones that seemed like they could have come from a woods like this. Like, these are not prime specimens. They're going to be lovely, but these aren't the ones that would be, like, entered in the best pawpaw contest. They're just very average pawpaws. Dan Pashman Sarah picked these two days earlier. They're oblong on the small side. One fits in the palm of my hand. They have the coloring of a speckled green pear. Okay, I'm ready. Let's do it. Okay, okay. Do I need a knife? Sara Bir You should be able to just tear into it with your hands. Dan Pashman Just rip it open. Yeah. Like, dig my thumbs into it and pull it apart. Sara Bir Yeah, there's kind of not a wrong way. Dan Pashman All right, all right. I'm digging my thumbs in. At least in this context. It pulls right apart. The skin is not too thick. It is very juicy. Kind of mushy, like you say, custardy. I see the black seeds. Sara Bir There are the black seeds. Dan Pashman The flesh is yellow, bright yellow. Sara Bir So I would say to slurp out some of the flesh and then spit out the seed. Okay. Dan Pashman Can I just bite into the flesh? Yeah, yeah. Sara Bir Just go for it. Dan Pashman The fruit is a challenge to eat. A lot of seeds in relation to flesh. But once you navigate all that and take a taste... You're thinking. Yeah, there's something like a little bit sort of funky to it. Like, I keep trying to think of like, oh, it tastes like this other thing that people will know, but I can't think of what that is. Sara Bir It tastes of many things and also of none of them. That's what's really hard about this to articulate, I think. Dan Pashman I'm getting the hang of eating it. The word that I kept reading was custardy of the texture inside, and I think that's a very good description. It's almost like flan. It's not the kind of thing you sink your teeth into. It's sort of like very kind of melty. Sara Bir Yes, yes, melty for sure. If you can sink your teeth into it, it's going to taste disgusting because it's not ripe. Dan Pashman Most people said it tastes like a banana-mango combo. To me, this one's more like a papaya-passion fruit combo. Tart, almost citrusy. That could be my perception, or it could just be that wild pawpaws vary a lot from one tree to the next. Yeah, I think you're right. The part of the reason why it's such a weird sensation to eat it is that it feels totally out of place. It's like I feel like I'm on vacation. Like, I'm not here. How could I be here and be eating this? I must be somewhere else. Sara Bir There's a disconnect about it that is, for me, completely compelling, and I get excited about it every year, and I forget what it's like to eat a pawpaw. And then I think, will they even come back? Do pawpaws even exist? And then they do come back and I'll be like, do I even like pawpaws? And then eventually I'll come across the first ripe one I come across and I get to experience that all over again. And it's so fun and reassuring. I'll be like oh yeah i do love pawpaws after all there we go okay dan is flinging the juice off of his hands and now um licking my fingers licking your fingers and step three if you like is Dan Pashman Wipe them on your pants yeah sarah eats the other pawpaw she brought and then what should i do the rest of this? Sara Bir Okay. This is fun. Okay. What you can do is increase the genetic diversity of the pawpaws here. Dan Pashman Yes, I can drop these seeds around. We can expand the patch. Sara Bir Yeah, totally. See, I call this a pawpaw bomb. Dan Pashman I'm just throwing them all around. I'm throwing the seeds all around. ([Time 0:34:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c2d4ca58-579c-46d2-a7da-ad2e8e481ff6)) - **Rarity Fuels Culinary Creativity** - Pawpaws inspire local culinary creativity because their custardy, tropical flavor suits desserts like creme brulee. - Local chefs and chocolatiers are starting to spotlight pawpaws, showing how rarity fuels innovation. Transcript: Dan Pashman On my three-hour voyage home, I reflect on what just happened. Part of me feels like I crossed through the pawpaw portal that Sarah talked about. The world looks different. As I pass other woods, I think about what wonders might be in there. But then I also start asking the same question Sarah said she asked at the end of every pawpaw season. Did that really happen? Do pawpaws even exist? Then, a couple days later, I'm scrolling through Instagram, and I stop on a photo. I'm like, that thing looks familiar. Wait a second. That's a pawpaw. What's a pawpaw doing in my Instagram feed? It's my friend and neighbor, Chef Ron Fan, who you'll remember from my early pasta testing. He just got his hands on some pawpaws, and he's cooking with them. I send him a text. He asks if I want to stop by to try some samples. So it turns out I didn't have to travel three hours to find a pawpaw after all. Ron's pawpaws were grown by a local farmer on Long Island. He's set up behind a convent. He laid out, like, a couple feet of wood chips. He just has all these random trees growing out there, and pawpaws are one of them. And how did you get hooked up with this guy? Speaker 3 He's been advertising on Facebook a little bit, doing weird little videos telling people you should try this fruit. Dan Pashman So this is your first time eating for some cooking with pawpaws? Speaker 3 Yes, absolutely. The first time I've seen a pawpaw was just two days ago. Dan Pashman Would you rather have that than just going to the supermarket and getting a banana and a lychee or a mango or a passion fruit? Yeah, absolutely. Because it's local. Yeah. So you decided to make what with it, with the pawpaw? A creme brulee. Are you going to brulee this creme right in front of me? Absolutely. Here comes the brulee, the blowtorch. As Ron torches the sugar, he tells me something else. It's not just this farmer in the area. A local chocolatier is working on a new confection featuring pawpaws. We don't usually cover food trends on this pork fold, but I'm starting to think we may have stumbled onto the biggest thing since arugula got put in a bag. After Ron's done bruleing, he pours a splash of rum over the top, then sets it on fire. Let's cook off for a minute. Then he breaks up the hard sugar top so the rum can flow down into the custard. That's right, Rowan. Very good. Oh, my God, that looks ridiculous. Oh, my God. That is so good. Now the real question is, do I save any of this for Janie or not? Yeah. It won't. You know what? Sorry, Janie. I'm really, really sorry. If you want to see a photo of the pawpaw creme brulee and more pics from my adventures in the woods with Sarah Burr, check out my Instagram. I am at the sporkful. My thanks to Sarah Burr, author of the Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook, which you can buy wherever books are sold. 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