I can't say definitively about the taste because I've only had Pawpaws a few times [1]. They're like a slightly less ripe banana taste in a less satisfying mango texture and less sour. I'm not a huge fan of the flavor but they are good ecologically, are native, and it's just fun to be able to eat fruit growing on trees.
Has anyone else noticed how good fruit has gotten in the past years? Sumo Citruses are amazing, strawberries have gotten sweeter (it depends which ones but generally). They used to always be white in the middle but now they're often have more red.
I just had some insane blueberries where they were all perfectly sour, firm, and there was only one bad one.
There was some news about this recently sadly I cannot find it at the moment. I guess there's a scale that is used to measure sugar content; the Brix scale, and fruit is moving up the scale really rapidly over the past decade or so.
Wait till you see what's coming up soon. The commercial nurseries are creating some really insane stonefruit and other things like that, especially Floyd Zaiger, but they haven't become widely planted or popular yet, and stonefruit take several years to get established, so expect another profusion of fruit varieties over the next decade or so.
Flavor King is an older varietal (1991) you might hear about. Apparently they can even cause a theft problem when planted in urban areas along fences, because people will borrow a pluot, try it, and come back with a wheelbarrow they're so tasty.
I have property in zone 4a. It's in WI about thirty minutes south of Lake Superior. I had read that they have pawpaw at UW Madison so I bought five seedlings as an experiment. The first year two survived the winter. The next year one of them was hit by a mower and died. The survivor is still alive after five years.
Pawpaw reproduce sexually so this year I bought five more plants from a farm in Michigan. These were older than seedlings and not cheap. Anything to wed my lone pawpaw.
Ilk know in the spring if any survived the winter.
The seedlings can be disappointing. Pawpaw is a lot like peppers. Selected cultivars are good, but wild ones can be awful. I strongly advice to plant certified cultivars of your preferred flavor. My Shenandoah has a lot of banana mixed with caramel and the texture reminds to a lemon mousse that does not taste at all like a lemon. Also wait for them to be really ripe but not overripe (The flavor spoils). The fruits fall when are ripe and then is a speed race with slugs, coons and squirrels.
It needs water and grows well were hazelnuts also grow. Take advantage also of the relatively brief but good butter yellow fall color placing for example some chokeberries (melanocarpa Viking for fruit, arbutifolia Brilliant for red color), or a Japanese maple like Seiryu fast grower vertically providing a decent canopy, rusty fall color and great under spring lights, Hogyoku or Emmet's Pumpkin have great oranges and reds in fall and a decent sized leaf that unlike Seyriu will not dissappear around the huge leaves of the paw paw but is a question of personal taste. Put each tree well spaced but close enough to be seen as one scene and plan in advance as this trees don't like at all to be moved later.
Paw paws grow happy under canopy, specially for its first years, but produce much better at full sun (flies don't like shadow). Can be hand pollinated in any case.
This is great info. I've wanted to grow some for years, but I live in CO, and won't be moving to a region where these are viable for a few years yet, so I've got plenty of time to plan. I had no idea there even were cultivars for this fruit, but I was aware they like to start in shade, then explode once started.
In the Southwest, there are many environments where a tall, shady plant grows quickly, sets the stage for plants that need only initial shade, and then the fast-grower eventually loses out on the plot once the slower-growers have a chance to establish themselves. Once those slow growers are in place, a new generation of smaller, shade-loving plants will often follow, filling in the area that the fast-growers left.
I wonder if there are analogues you're meant to plant first, to get the pawpaw going.
I have 3 trees. I highly recommend the KSU Atwood, which is bred for its particular flavor and high output. We live in Virginia and a cold front killed a bunch of the young fruit about a week after we pollinate the trees, and we still got around 50 decently-sized pawpaws from that tree
Cause of much confusion for people who live in the (mainly asian, but also Oceania) lands of the papaya which is unfortunately colloquially called "pawpaw" by many.
Not unlike what Scots people do discussing Turnip and Swede.
Searched the article for "annonacin", "neurotoxin", and "atypical parkinsonism" and came up short. Warning about skin and seeds being generically toxic kinda buried at the end.
Anyway, I had some recently that showed up at my local co-op. The texture was nice, but the flavor was...fine? Certainly nothing magical.
The magic is a tropical tasting fruit! I have a tree and it's tough to actually get one of the fruits when they are ripe. This year I got lucky with a few that feel into my fenced garden section and I got them before the critters.
If this worries you, can try the cultivar Wells, selected by its low level of acetogenins.
Wild paw paws with high levels of acetogenins announce it, with horrible flavor. The domestic fruits are selected against. A correct amount adds a lot of complexity to the flavor, so can be desirable in a fruit that you eat just a month at year. I bet that you never worry about the fact that your potatoes have a little bit of solanin after all.
> I bet that you never worry about the fact that your potatoes have a little bit of solanin after all
In fairness, solanine is purely an acute poison, while annonacin has cumulative effects. Not that the compound itself bioaccumulates but the damage it causes does.
If you already have any parkinsons symptoms whatsoever, pawpaw amounts greater than 0.2 fruits per year have been shown to worsen them.
I can't say definitively about the taste because I've only had Pawpaws a few times [1]. They're like a slightly less ripe banana taste in a less satisfying mango texture and less sour. I'm not a huge fan of the flavor but they are good ecologically, are native, and it's just fun to be able to eat fruit growing on trees.
Has anyone else noticed how good fruit has gotten in the past years? Sumo Citruses are amazing, strawberries have gotten sweeter (it depends which ones but generally). They used to always be white in the middle but now they're often have more red.
I just had some insane blueberries where they were all perfectly sour, firm, and there was only one bad one.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgZkMRfnomI
Read a really interesting writeup on blueberry engineering and economics a while ago. Worth checking out.
https://sftw.substack.com/p/chasing-counter-seasonality
There was some news about this recently sadly I cannot find it at the moment. I guess there's a scale that is used to measure sugar content; the Brix scale, and fruit is moving up the scale really rapidly over the past decade or so.
I've only had pawpaws a few times also, and I would describe them as custard, without any strong taint of distinctive flavor.
It's more like creme brulee without the torched crisp top.
Wait till you see what's coming up soon. The commercial nurseries are creating some really insane stonefruit and other things like that, especially Floyd Zaiger, but they haven't become widely planted or popular yet, and stonefruit take several years to get established, so expect another profusion of fruit varieties over the next decade or so.
Flavor King is an older varietal (1991) you might hear about. Apparently they can even cause a theft problem when planted in urban areas along fences, because people will borrow a pluot, try it, and come back with a wheelbarrow they're so tasty.
Related. Others?
Foraging for America's Forgotten Fruit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693513 - Sept 2024 (22 comments)
Consider the Pawpaw - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39523641 - Feb 2024 (65 comments)
Why don't grocery stores stock pawpaw fruit? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38851025 - Jan 2024 (151 comments)
Ted's Notes on Pawpaws (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37140681 - Aug 2023 (57 comments)
Why is the most American fruit so hard to buy? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33139936 - Oct 2022 (18 comments)
Pickin'em Up the Pawpaws - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29874785 - Jan 2022 (1 comment)
I have property in zone 4a. It's in WI about thirty minutes south of Lake Superior. I had read that they have pawpaw at UW Madison so I bought five seedlings as an experiment. The first year two survived the winter. The next year one of them was hit by a mower and died. The survivor is still alive after five years.
Pawpaw reproduce sexually so this year I bought five more plants from a farm in Michigan. These were older than seedlings and not cheap. Anything to wed my lone pawpaw.
Ilk know in the spring if any survived the winter.
The seedlings can be disappointing. Pawpaw is a lot like peppers. Selected cultivars are good, but wild ones can be awful. I strongly advice to plant certified cultivars of your preferred flavor. My Shenandoah has a lot of banana mixed with caramel and the texture reminds to a lemon mousse that does not taste at all like a lemon. Also wait for them to be really ripe but not overripe (The flavor spoils). The fruits fall when are ripe and then is a speed race with slugs, coons and squirrels.
It needs water and grows well were hazelnuts also grow. Take advantage also of the relatively brief but good butter yellow fall color placing for example some chokeberries (melanocarpa Viking for fruit, arbutifolia Brilliant for red color), or a Japanese maple like Seiryu fast grower vertically providing a decent canopy, rusty fall color and great under spring lights, Hogyoku or Emmet's Pumpkin have great oranges and reds in fall and a decent sized leaf that unlike Seyriu will not dissappear around the huge leaves of the paw paw but is a question of personal taste. Put each tree well spaced but close enough to be seen as one scene and plan in advance as this trees don't like at all to be moved later.
Paw paws grow happy under canopy, specially for its first years, but produce much better at full sun (flies don't like shadow). Can be hand pollinated in any case.
This is great info. I've wanted to grow some for years, but I live in CO, and won't be moving to a region where these are viable for a few years yet, so I've got plenty of time to plan. I had no idea there even were cultivars for this fruit, but I was aware they like to start in shade, then explode once started.
In the Southwest, there are many environments where a tall, shady plant grows quickly, sets the stage for plants that need only initial shade, and then the fast-grower eventually loses out on the plot once the slower-growers have a chance to establish themselves. Once those slow growers are in place, a new generation of smaller, shade-loving plants will often follow, filling in the area that the fast-growers left.
I wonder if there are analogues you're meant to plant first, to get the pawpaw going.
I have 3 trees. I highly recommend the KSU Atwood, which is bred for its particular flavor and high output. We live in Virginia and a cold front killed a bunch of the young fruit about a week after we pollinate the trees, and we still got around 50 decently-sized pawpaws from that tree
I’m in VA too and have been thinking of putting them in
I have peach trees going into second winter and they will likely fruit next year and are way more work to train than I want in the future.
How much labor are they for the yield and any major downsides?
I have a small group of PawPaw trees in my yard, but I haven't gotten them to fruit in the three years I've lived here.
The big issue is they're pollinated by flies, and it's a bit of a pain putting the labor in to attract the flies and help them out.
Someone I know (in a fairly rural area) would grab some roadkill and hang it in the tree. -.-
I has this a lot when growing up, and it honestly tasted like nothing. Are African pawpaws that different?
Yes! North American pawpaw are totally different from what we refer to as papaya.
Cause of much confusion for people who live in the (mainly asian, but also Oceania) lands of the papaya which is unfortunately colloquially called "pawpaw" by many.
Not unlike what Scots people do discussing Turnip and Swede.
Maybe don't over do frequent eating of the fruit and others from its family:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba#Potential_toxi...
TIL that American pawpaw is different from Australian pawpaws (papaya) (which are tropical).
> A previous version of this article referred to the pawpaw as a tropical fruit. It is in fact a temperate fruit, that belongs to a tropical family.
Can't see that name without thinking of the Jungle Book.
Searched the article for "annonacin", "neurotoxin", and "atypical parkinsonism" and came up short. Warning about skin and seeds being generically toxic kinda buried at the end.
Anyway, I had some recently that showed up at my local co-op. The texture was nice, but the flavor was...fine? Certainly nothing magical.
Nutrition Facts says not to eat them: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/do-not-eat-pawpaws/
The magic is a tropical tasting fruit! I have a tree and it's tough to actually get one of the fruits when they are ripe. This year I got lucky with a few that feel into my fenced garden section and I got them before the critters.
There's a hint of rottenness to the scent -- even vomit to some. Maybe like Durian.
If this worries you, can try the cultivar Wells, selected by its low level of acetogenins.
Wild paw paws with high levels of acetogenins announce it, with horrible flavor. The domestic fruits are selected against. A correct amount adds a lot of complexity to the flavor, so can be desirable in a fruit that you eat just a month at year. I bet that you never worry about the fact that your potatoes have a little bit of solanin after all.
> I bet that you never worry about the fact that your potatoes have a little bit of solanin after all
In fairness, solanine is purely an acute poison, while annonacin has cumulative effects. Not that the compound itself bioaccumulates but the damage it causes does.
If you already have any parkinsons symptoms whatsoever, pawpaw amounts greater than 0.2 fruits per year have been shown to worsen them.
I'm in Massachusetts and have two of these growing on my property, still waiting on them to produce fruit.
TIL poop flies can pollinate fruit. ::throws up::