Pawpaws: Hardy fruit, tropical flavor
I’ve heard about pawpaws all my life, but only recently had a chance to taste one. When I finally did take a pawpaw, I understood what all the fuss was about. It has sweet, soft, fragrant, pale yellow flesh similar to that of white sapote, or custard apple, a tropical fruit native to Mexico. Since the pawpaw I tasted was from a tree grown near San Francisco, I wondered, why this delicious fruit was not to be found in Bay Area markets.
The book “Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit,” by Andrew Moore (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015; paperback edition available April 17), explains why. First, pawpaws do not ship well. Like sapotes and the also-related cherimoyas, pawpaws are soft when ripe. They bruise easily so the source needs to be near the market. Second, they have a very short season, so unless an eager public is waiting for them, they may spoil before they’re sold.
Moore’s book traces the history of this largest fruit native to the U.S., and explains how to grow it. Moore also tells about the researchers who have been breeding superior varieties and about efforts to promote and sell the fruit.
Where does the name pawpaw come from? Europeans, or possibly African slaves who had come to the mainland from the West Indies, first called them by this name, a variant of the word papaya.
Pawpaws (Asimina triloba) taste tropical but are hardy to about 20 below zero. They grow along rivers in much of the eastern U.S. and were relished by many native American tribes. George Washington liked chilled pawpaws. Lewis and Clark ate them when passing through a region where they grew. American settlers sometimes removed the trees in favor of planting cornfields, but many wild groves remain. Pawpaws were recently sold at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco, but the one nearby farm that grew pawpaws couldn’t make a go of the crop, so removed it to expand other crops. Still, pawpaws make an easy-to-grow garden fruit tree.
The tree can reach 35 feet in height, but might reach only 10-15 feet where summers are cool. Its leaves, up to a foot long, give the tree a tropical look. It’s dormant in winter, then bears small, maroon blossoms before leaves return in spring. The fruits, up to nine in a cluster, ripen in late August or September. They are 3 to 6 inches long, weighing 5 to 16 ounces.
Pawpaw needs well-drained, fertile soil, with a slightly acidic pH (5-7), and a site out of strong winds. The best time to plant (a potted seedling is best) is in spring, just before it leafs out. See the website of the California Rare Fruit Growers (https://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/pawpaw.html).
Gardeners are growing pawpaws in San Jose, Los Altos, Berkeley and Walnut Creek. You can buy plants from Raintree Nursery, (800) 391-8892, raintreenursery.com, or One Green World, (877) 353-4028, onegreenworld.com.