It’s pawpaw pickin’ time! But hurry, you don’t have long now to harvest the nutritious new “it” fruit

By Shelly Whitehead
NKyTribune Contributor

Right about now, it’s very likely that in a woods near your Northern Kentucky home, something delightful is showing up on a few gangly looking trees in the undergrowth beneath all those oaks and maples.

It is, of course, the pawpaw – this nation’s largest and one of its most nutritious fruits – that just happens to grow wild around this area.

But you may have competition if you head out to find a nearby fruit-laden tree these days because pawpaws are having a “moment” in the culinary community.

With a little luck, at least around the Commonwealth, they might also soon be one of the next cash crops.

You see, these days this native fruit and favorite dessert of our nation’s first “paw,” George Washington, is finding new life among foodies and libation-lovers everywhere.

It is not only known as the source of a lovely golden-hued wine, but also as one of the trendiest menu items among the premier restaurants nationwide.

Yet, despite the acclaim, the poor pawpaw has a bit of an image problem. It seems the odd little egg-shaped fruit is just not very pretty to look at.

Also, despite its rich and creamy banana-mango flavor, the pawpaw is not only laden with hard-to-remove seeds, it also can be – according to even those who love them – a little slimy.

Their biggest problem when it comes to overall marketability, however, might be the fact that their shelf-life is downright dismal. You pretty much have to eat ’em or freeze ’em as soon as you pick ’em.

So given all its inherent challenges, it’s saying something that the pawpaw has achieved the status of today’s “it” fruit.

That was made clear by the popularity of the pawpaw-tasting event held at the Boone County Arboretum one evening a few weeks ago.

The two-hour education and sampling extravaganza was a smash hit, with the limit of 50 participants reached quickly after news spread about the class, forcing the folks at the arboretum to actually have to turn people away.

But, oh those lucky 50! They not only learned a lot but also enjoyed a veritable feast of eleven different pawpaw varieties along with their delectable baked and frozen offspring. And if you asked just about anyone attending and sampling the mellow-yellow-to-bright-orange slices of fruit about the flavor, the invariable answer was something like “I love ’em all” and “Where have you been all my life?”

Kentucky is “Pawpaw Central”

Now, guess which of the nation’s 50 states is the center of the pawpaw universe today?

Okay, we probably gave it away, but otherwise you might have been inclined to say Ohio, since the pawpaw is the Buckeye state fruit.

All of the real research into pawpaws today is actually done right here in Kentucky and Kentucky State University in Frankfort is home to what may be the world’s largest pawpaw research program.

“That’s right, we’ve had a pawpaw research program at KSU since 1990,” said KSU’s Sheri Crabtree, who goes far and wide across the commonwealth to improve pawpaw knowledge and love. “And since that time, we’ve done cultivar variety trials and breeding and released a variety called KSU Atwood. We hope to release more varieties in the next year or two (and) we work with the growers, too.”

Future growers may well include the 12-year-old young man at the pawpaw tasting in the T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Plant Whisperer.” In fact, Matt Davis already has a few trees of his own and also brought his grandfather to the tasting to teach him a thing or two.

“He’s highly interested and I have a great interest in it too from my earlier days,” said his grandfather, Larry Davis. “So he’s actually pulled me along.”

Matt said he has two stands of pawpaw trees in “his” woods, but added that they bore fruit that tasted and looked a little different from the varieties offered at the sampling.

“Instead of this orange-y flesh (mine) have white flesh. …. and I don’t know, they taste more wild.”

Nearby at the tasting table, Mary Zurich said she knew that taste well from back when she was Matt’s age many years ago, roaming the woods around her Verona home, in search of what some called the “poor man’s banana.” The pawpaw tasting took her back to her childhood.

“It brings back a lot of memories,” she said. “We just broke ’em open and then ate the contents out. Then, I love to suck on the seeds and suck all the pulp off of them. They were awesome.”

How and when to pick a pawpaw

As president of the North American Pawpaw Growers Association, Ron Powell has probably heard comments like Mary’s many times before.

With a doctorate in agriculture and his own pawpaw grove in Ohio, one might call him “Professor Pawpaw,” because there is just not much he doesn’t know about this fruit.

That includes their many uses among Native Americans over time for everything from sweet cakes to head lice treatments, all the way to the best ways and times today to harvest these little green-skinned sweeties.

“Don’t ever shake the trees,” he warns, referring to a common practice among some to get the fruit to fall from the branches. “If you’ve not been hit on the head with a hard one, it could happen any time and they hurt because (when not ripe) they are rock hard. Then, if they are ripe and you get hit, it’s going to go ‘splat’ and you’re going to be covered in pawpaw pulp.”

That is a quite colorful stain that Powell says you will never get out.

Kentuckians may choose to wear that stain proudly as a way to exclaim their love for the funny little mushy fruit with the big taste that has a knack for working its way into your life once you’ve sampled a few.

Just ask the Bowling family, who, after the Burlington sampling event are truly committed, albeit newly minted, pawpaw converts.

“I’m interested in growing them and it’s something to add to our landscaping and something to do with the kids to grow up introducing them to a new fruit,” said Steve Bowling as he looked over to his wife, Erin and got a devilish grin. “I notice you can make a wine out of pawpaws and that would be something to try, too.”