Pawpaw Picking & More
What is a pawpaw? It’s a native fruit, also known as custard apple or soursop, and the northernmost member of a tropical family called Annonaceae.
Pawpaw trees can be found in a stretch of the US from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Florida panhandle. They’re America’s largest edible fruit and grow on trees that only get as high as 25 or 30 feet.
You can spot pawpaw trees in parks, forests, even the occasional backyard! They’re known as an understory tree in wooded areas, with fairly skinny trunks and distinctively shaped leaves.
Here’s what to look for:
Dark green, long, oval-shaped leaves that are widest just below their tips. They’re sometimes droopy-looking and turn yellow or golden in the fall.
The fruit grows in clusters and starts to ripen in early September to early October depending on your part of the country. In Kentucky, we’re on the early side of that range.
When are pawpaws ready to eat?
Although pawpaws will fall off the tree when they’re fully ripe, it’s best to beat them to the punch and pick your pawpaws when their stems break off from the branch with no resistance, and the fruit has a slight give to it, much like a perfect peach.
And remember — not all the fruit on a tree will ripen at the same time, so keep your eye on it and be sure to return for more!
What are you gonna do with your pawpaws?
Split them in half and remove the seeds. If the pawpaws are fully ripe, the pulp will start to turn to purée as soon as you scoop it out, a job you can easily finish with a ricer or chinois strainer.
Everybody agrees that pawpaws are best eaten raw or baked into cakes, quick breads, etc.; direct stovetop heat destroys their volatile flavor compounds We like to purée the pulp and freeze for later use in desserts like custards and ice cream, where its natural creaminess really shines.
If you’re not eating or freezing your pawpaw right away, or if you plan on storing it in the refrigerator, add a little lemon juice to the pulp to keep it from browning.
Or enjoy them the way our friend Richard Jones does – right off the tree.
Past years I’d drift down the South Elkhorn in my canoe and stop at pawpaw patches alongside the creek, and shake the fruit out of the trees to beat the varmints to it.
If you venture out to forage your own pawpaws, a good way to protect the ecosystem you’re harvesting from is to never take more than 30% of what’s available. No time to hunt for your own pawpaws? Check out local farmers markets & grocery stores like Lexington’s Good Foods Co-op.
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Foraging Fools
Forager Storey Slone explores a local wildlife area with us, looking for edible wild plants and fungi. Along the way, she shows us that collecting and preparing wild-harvested products is a labor of love. A connection to the natural world and a reminder to be thankful for those things that are often invisible and yet bountiful in our daily lives.
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