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This reminds me of the paw paw (not to be confused with the papaya which Australians call pawpaw) https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/15/550985844/this
by moultano 9y ago
This reminds me of the paw paw (not to be confused with the papaya which Australians call pawpaw) https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/15/550985844/this-once-obscure-fruit-is-on-its-way-to-becoming-pawpaw-pawpular https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/15/550985844/th... It's a fruit that seems tropical, a close relative of the custard apple or sitaphal that tastes like a pina colada. Yet it grows natively all over the eastern US. It's so common that in many places it's every third tree in the forest.
I grew up in peak pawpaw country (Cincinnati), got a thorough outdoors education via boy scouts, and never learned about the existence of this incredible plant. Nobody knows about it! The day after I learned about it, I could walk a few feet into the woods in a park in the middle of the city, shake a tree and come out with tropical tasting fruit, and yet people walk by this tree every day oblivious. Mind-boggling.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoPawpaw is available in every supermarket in Australia, maybe not all year round. I’ve seen quite a few pawpaw trees in backyards, but it’s defi an under appreciated fruit here too. Dried sugar dusted pawpaw is flipping amazing.
- jackvalentine 9y agoI loved dried pawpaw as a kid (growing up in Aus) but never had it fresh. Is it good?
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoHard to beat sugar dusted sweetness, but yeah the fresh fruit is delicious too.
- moultano 9y agoThat's a totally different pawpaw! The fruit that Australians call pawpaw, Americans call papaya. Edited original post to avoid confusion
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoNah mate, same thing. The Google image search you linked to is the pawpaw or papaya, it goes under both name. See here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaya
- moultano 9y agoI should know better since I work for Google, but you're getting results localized for Australia which are all "papaya." I get results localized for the US which are all this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba The funny thing is that I've actually used this example at work as a rare case of an Australia/US localization issue, but totally forgot about HNs global audience when I made this post.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoOoooh, right, I see, thanks for clearing that up. Yep, I see now how the flesh and seeds are similar to a Custard Apple. I’ve eaten those fresh from the farm in Norther New South Whales and liked them. Had limited success with store bought ones elsewhere in Australia. Funny how we both forgot about internet search localisation!
- StudentStuff 9y agoThis right here is why I've dumped Google. Long tail searches essentially no longer work, if I type a part number into Google it'll often be rewritten needlessly and I'll get irrelevant results. Even Yahoo can get long tail search right, which is a pretty low bar. Though, Qwant seems to be the most well rounded search engine, both Yahoo and DuckDuckGo have unpolished edge cases that have turned me off over the years.
- moultano 9y agoIf you can remember the example queries I can pass them along to debug. (You can check your search history if you have it turned on. https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity )
- innocentoldguy 9y agoI LOVE paw paws. I used to eat them all the time as a kid when I’d visit Kentucky. You can buy saplings online, but I’ve never had any success growing them in my area.
- roel_v 9y agoThey're pollinated by blow flies, not by the insects that pollinate most other plants. Which is why it's sometimes recommended to hang small animal carcasses (rabbits, rats) between paw paw plants. For those of us who aren't too keen on nailing up dead animals, there's manual pollination.
- jmgrosen 9y agoClover Food Lab here in Boston got a small batch of pawpaws recently and used them to make soda. It was heavenly. Hopefully recent trends of farmers' markets and such will increase the availability!
- Baeocystin 9y agoPawpaws have very inconsistent harvests, don't ship well at all, and have a very short ready to eat -> overripe time. They are also, like you note, absolutely delicious. I have two trees in my backyard. (You need two for them to pollinate and bear fruit.) But there are practical reasons why you don't see them for sale very often.
- moultano 9y agoI get why they aren't in supermarkets but it's so sad that they've dropped out of food culture almost entirely. They're so abundant in the woods around Cincinnati that they are hard to miss. I remember seeing one on the ground while camping as a kid, but had no idea what it was and neither did anyone around me.
- Baeocystin 9y agoMake sure to do your part, and introduce as many people as you can! They're still very uncommon here in California, but they grow well in much of the state. I managed to get one of my neighbors to plant a pair a few years back. This year may be the first we both get fruit. :)
- moultano 9y agoAre you in a wetter area? I mentally associate them with river valleys so naively I wouldn't think they'd be drought tolerant at all.
- Baeocystin 9y agoI'm in the bay area of California, so while we do get rain, it's highly seasonal. My pawpaws do need watering in the summer, but it isn't as bad as you might think. They have a pretty deep taproot once established, so a slow drip system just to keep the soil column from drying out can be all you need, which is pretty water-efficient. I'd say they use about as much water as an equivalent-sized stonefruit tree, like a peach or plum, maybe even a little less.
- hordeallergy 9y agoSouth Africans also call papaya pawpaw. Wikipedia says the name is colour related:in Australia, these are called "red papaya" and "yellow papaw". In SA I only saw yellow.
- novia 9y agoI ate a paw paw once, and since then I've been trying to find a definitely identified paw paw tree so I can recognize them in the wild. The fruit was so delicious and the seeds were really interesting and unique. If any of you are willing to show me a paw paw tree in person, please shoot me an email.
- Baeocystin 9y agoIt's 1am where I live right now, but tomorrow I'll take a picture of the two in my backyard and post it. They're only just starting to leaf out after winter, but you can get a decent idea of what they look like.
- novia 9y agoThanks for the offer, but there's more to identifying plants for me than what they look like. There's also texture, and smell. I've looked at pictures online, and it's tricky, because apparently their morphology changes depending on where they are grown.
- jonah 9y agoHere are a variety of pictures to give you an idea of the range of morphology: http://blossomnursery.com/ http://blossomnursery.com/ http://blossomnursery.com/pawpaw_PIX.html http://blossomnursery.com/pawpaw_PIX.html http://blossomnursery.com/pawpaw_more_pix.htm http://blossomnursery.com/pawpaw_more_pix.htm
- Alex3917 9y agoJust go to your local botanical garden or arboretum. They’re super easy to recognize because the leaves look like giant exclamation marks. Sometimes you’ll see them planted near magnolia trees or Buckeyes, both of which also have big leaves, to ‘hide’ them so that people don’t eat the fruit.
- saganus 9y agoI'd love to see (and taste) one too!
- gbrown 9y agoSadly, that whole genus contains neurotoxins. I'm not sure the medical evidence is in on pawpaw's, but soursop is responsible for high rates of atypical Parkinson's in areas where it's a staple.
- thebooktocome 9y agoLooks like you're right: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22130466/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22130466/
- acdanger 9y agoI'm guessing moderate pawpaw consumption is still relatively safe. This study isolated annnonacin from pawpaws and applied it to neural cells directly in large dosages. The soursop case involved prolonged and daily intake, as well.
- jonah 9y agoThe toxins are mostly in the leaves, bark, and skins, so eating them is quite safe. Some people can have an allergic reaction when consuming them so just be aware of that when trying them for the first few times.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- heymijo 9y agoCome to southeast Ohio and you will see that pawpaws are far from forgotten. Bumper stickers on cars are common and there's even a Pawpaw Festival each September. https://www.ohiopawpawfest.com/ https://www.ohiopawpawfest.com/
- stjohnswarts 9y agoLots of people I know in Kentucky eat them as well.
- jonah 9y agoSo much so that Kentucky State has a large program devoted to them: http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/ http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/
- n2dasun 9y agoI just learned about these last year from a coworker. I still have a way too old one in a ziploc bag in the fridge, because I was suppose to try and grow a seedling.
- abakker 9y agoAre these like sapotes? My grandma has a Sapote tree in San Diego and it is incredible!
- jonah 9y agoIn that they have a tender, thin green skin and creamy white flesh. The flavor profile is pretty different though. Pawpaw has been described as tasting like banana custard. They area related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherimoya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherimoya (And yes, Sapotes are amazing too - one of my favorite fruit.)
- LostPinesYaupon 9y agoHey we've got some pawpaws too! Ours are flowering and already setting some fruit!