It is the largest edible fruit native to the U.S. and has been prized for its delicious tropical taste for centuries.
In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto noted native Indians growing and eating them in the Mississippi valley. They once reportedly saved Lewis and Clark from starvation, and early settlers survived by eating them in times of famine. Many older rural folks may have fond memories of picking them way down yonder in the patch.
They’re pawpaws. If you’re lucky, you might find wild ones at a roadside stand.
But when will we be able to go into a supermarket and buy them?
In 10 to 15 years, pawpaws are expected to be one of the hottest fruits in the U.S., on par with papayas and kiwis, according to Desmond Layne.
“Twenty years ago you never even saw a kiwi fruit,” but growers have been able to develop an industry over a long period of time, says Layne, a horticultural researcher at Kentucky State University and head of the college’s pawpaw research program since 1993.
“The interest level for pawpaws is quite amazing, and I think it will establish its own niche in the market,” he says. “I expect pawpaws will be regarded as something exotic and unusual.”
Its ripe taste resembles a creamy mixture of banana, mango and pineapple.
Rich in nutrients
Layne cites a number of reasons why the largely overlooked pawpaw–which can substitute for bananas in many recipes–could become a commercially important crop early in the next century.
“It’s a highly nutritious food source,” he says, adding that pawpaws exceed apples, peaches and grapes in most vitamins, minerals and amino acids.
Though best eaten fresh or made into desserts, the pawpaw’s intense tropical flavor and aroma also make it a natural candidate for such processed products as blended fruit drinks, baby food and ice cream. The flesh purees and freezes nicely.
The tree is well-adapted to the 25 states in the Eastern half of the U.S. where it already grows wild; Illinois and Michigan are among four Midwestern states that have the best germ plasm , or living tissue from which new plants can be grown.
The pawpaw tree’s bark and leaves also produce natural compounds that show great promise as anti-tumor and organic pesticide agents, Layne says. The plant is highly resistant to insects and diseases; research under way at Purdue University suggests that a lucrative pawpaw industry also could develop for the production of cancer-fighting drugs.
“They may even be able to be produced and marketed as an organic fruit, which would open up a whole new arena,” Layne says.
Clearly, the pawpaw has a lot going for it. Then why did the fruit–the only temperate-climate member of the tropical custard apple family–never gain widespread success?
There are some drawbacks: the 12-ounce, soft-skinned green fruit is highly perishable, having a shelf life of three days (though it can be refrigerated up to three weeks). It’s inconsistent in flavor and has a short fall growing season. The orange-yellow pulp is studded with a dozen or so large brown seeds, making it difficult to eat and prepare.
Other factors doomed the fruit to obscurity, Layne says. When the population shifted from rural to urban areas beginning in the late 19th Century, the pawpaw was left behind in the bucolic backwaters, instead lending its name to a number of towns, rivers and other natural landmarks (Paw Paw, Mich., for example).
“Most of the fruits we eat today–apples, peaches, pears, apricots, and so on–aren’t native to North America,” Layne says. “A lot of the people who came over to North America wanted to grow what they were familiar with. So a lot of native plants were neglected by settlers and not brought into cultivation.
Pawpaws in production
“But that’s changing now,” he says. “A lot more people are interested in native plants, more so than in the past.”
Kentucky State has had a research program since 1990 directed toward developing the pawpaw as a commercial crop. The college grows one of the world’s largest collection of pawpaws–about 1,800 trees, with 70 geographic varieties–for breeding and evaluation. In Kentucky, pawpaw production is being investigated as an alternative to tobacco.
Bolstered by a $276,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture last August, Kentucky State has joined forces with the Washington, D.C., PawPaw Foundation to plant “regional variety trial” orchards at 17 university agriculture research centers throughout the country, including Purdue and a Michigan State University facility in St. Joseph, Mich.
Each orchard is growing the same 28 varieties, so farmers and researchers will be able to identify which pawpaws will grow best in their areas. The trees won’t begin bearing fruit for four or five years.
“We’ll also be trying to figure out those varieties that have a lot of (marketing) potential,” Layne says.
The 300-member PawPaw Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the research and development of Asimina triloba. The foundation, established by Neal Peterson in 1988, seeks to spur a pawpaw revival by sharing information among scientists, nursery owners, and others interested in improving the plant’s culture, as well as educating the public.
Peterson, a USDA economist, has been collecting and breeding pawpaws since the late ’70s, and maintains two germ plasm orchards in Maryland. His passion has helped rescue the forgotten fruit and has earned him the nickname “Johnny Appleseed of pawpaws.”
“We’d love to be able to ship out boxes of this stuff, but (the foundation) never produced enough pawpaws to make it practical for us,” says Ward Kelner, a salesman with Michigan Marketing Association-Earthly Delights in Holt.
Peterson brought some pawpaws to the Best of the Midwest Wine and Food Show at Navy Pier some years ago and got an encouraging response.
“I would say that 50 percent of those who tried them said, `These are wonderful,’ and were turned on by them,” he says.
Though you won’t find pawpaws in your produce section, they aren’t impossible to find. You might even have some of the tropical-looking trees growing in your back 40–or back yard.
“You’re going to have a hard time finding cases of them, but people who live out in the counties know where they are and pick them,” Layne says. “It’s more of a rural thing. They’re not plentiful by any means, but you might find them at roadside farmers markets selling for a buck apiece.”
