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Pawpaw: A Native Fruit that Tastes Like the Tropics
Photography by Marie Viljoen.
What fruit tastes like the tropics but is cold-hardy?
Ripe Brooklyn pawpaws in September. The wild pawpaws’ native range is in rich woodlands and river bottoms in the eastern, mid- and northwestern, and parts of the southern United States.
A feral pawpaw in New York City. The first pawpaws I tasted were shipped to my Brooklyn door in September 2016 from Southeast Ohio, by Integration Acres, a food forest enterprise based outside Athens.
A forager’s bounty in late August: Japanese knotweed flowers, pawpaws, and spicebush.
A cluster of pawpaws at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Pawpaw flowers are perfect (each with male and female parts) but not self-fertile.
Some ripe pawpaws can have a blackened skin. Ripe pawpaws lasts unusually well in the fridge, and the puréed, strained pulp freezes with no loss of flavor.
Pawpaw cocktail: 2 oz gin, 2 oz pawpaw purée, 1 oz lemon juice, fresh basil, and ice.
When I included a pawpaw chapter in my wild foods cookbook, Forage, Harvest, Feast, I created recipes for the fruit—cocktails, savory dishes, bakes, and desserts–that required serial testing: there was very little to go on, in terms of precedence.
Adapted from Forage, Harvest, Feast – A Wild-Inspired Cuisine. Place the pawpaw purée in a bowl with half the sugar and mix well. Transfer to your ice cream maker and churn until done (about 20 minutes).
Pawpaw Ice Cream