It's like a banana (custardy) and is probably similar to figs in that they don't store long. Figs are double annoying as they have to be picked when ripe and then are only good for like a day. The ones at a grocery store are picked too early and thus nasty. Like a flavorless peach. Pawpaws also are supposedly carcinogenic and require 2 trees to fruit iirc.
If it's hard to buy, there's a reason such as: 1.) Not good to eat, 2.) Can't be grown economically due to slow growth or expensive inputs, 3.) Can't be stored for long, 4.) Superior substitutes exist (possibly mango or banana), 5.) Illegal nature...etc.
Edit:
After reading, it confirms the inability to store and need to pick on the tree (similar to figs). I have a feeling that the recently coveted nature of the pawpaw is just that people want to try it once and not a sustained need like apples. I didn't see any mentioning of them being carcinogenic though. Maybe I remembered that wrong? I do see that it has annonacin which is also pretty bad if consumed regularly (hard to do with pawpaw) and something that pregnant women should probably avoid.
Good point, but I think it's a no. You can't dry a mango right? I guess a better question is if you can just freeze pawpaw.
An interesting little semi off-topic point, but dried figs somehow taste very differently than fresh figs. This was a shock to me. Fresh figs are close to peaches in a way.
Only slightly related, but "pawpaw" is often used in the Southern United States as a nickname for grandpa.
Reading this article was pretty surreal and funny with this in mind. Everyone rushing to buy and eat their pawpaws for their mango and banana like flavor.
I wonder if you could cultivate it on a larger scale, the demand is there. Or maybe they are more like truffles and need to be foraged.
Interesting article, now I have to try it. On a similar note, people take for granted the fact that tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate, vanilla, and blueberries all originated in the Americas.
Imagine ancient Rome without the tomato. Some things are so commonplace that we forget their origins.
Wow, that completely changes my perception of history.
There are two competing theories on the initial population of the Americas. The first was a land bridge theory which suggests hunter-gatherers tracked mammoths across the once-frozen Bering Strait bridge of modern Russia/Alaska, but a newer and more popular theory is that Polynesian peoples arrived by boat navigation.
Apparently, sweet potatoes arrived in Polynesia around 1,200 and 1,300 AD, which gives a lot of credit to the idea that the first human inhabitants of the Americas arrived by boat from Polynesia.
Genetic evidence suggests people got to the Americas about the same time as to Australia. That would have been by boat along Japan, the Aleutians, and down the west coast, maybe 50,000 years ago.
Polynesians came along tens of thousands of years later, starting from Taiwan and spreading out to southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Madagascar. They would have sailed from Pacific islands to Peru or Chile, and picked up sweet potato there. (Surprisingly, not potatoes or peanuts, although they could have taken and then lost those.)
We have certain evidence of hominins in California 130,000 years ago -- H. erectus, Neanderthal, Sap., or "other" -- although no evidence they left descendants.
These grow in my backyard (mid Atlantic US). They’re delicious and I’d describe them as a mix of a banana and a pear both in texture and flavor.
They’re pretty easy to find once you recognize the smell of the overripe rotting paw paws that have fell onto the ground (think fermented fruit with a sour scent). You can even gently shake a smaller tree and take cover as a few tennis ball sized fruits hit the ground.
"This publication is intended as an overview of pawpaw production, including overall culture, pests, harvest, postharvest handling, marketing, and research that seeks to advance the pawpaw’s potential for commercial development"
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[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 49.4 ms ] threadIf it's hard to buy, there's a reason such as: 1.) Not good to eat, 2.) Can't be grown economically due to slow growth or expensive inputs, 3.) Can't be stored for long, 4.) Superior substitutes exist (possibly mango or banana), 5.) Illegal nature...etc.
Edit:
After reading, it confirms the inability to store and need to pick on the tree (similar to figs). I have a feeling that the recently coveted nature of the pawpaw is just that people want to try it once and not a sustained need like apples. I didn't see any mentioning of them being carcinogenic though. Maybe I remembered that wrong? I do see that it has annonacin which is also pretty bad if consumed regularly (hard to do with pawpaw) and something that pregnant women should probably avoid.
An interesting little semi off-topic point, but dried figs somehow taste very differently than fresh figs. This was a shock to me. Fresh figs are close to peaches in a way.
There are multiple ways to dry mango and the end results are different. You can get any kind in a normal grocery or even in bulk at Costco.
https://integrationacres.com
The product page also supplies an additional hint why the fruit hasn't been commercialized: cooking with it can sometimes make people sick.
Reading this article was pretty surreal and funny with this in mind. Everyone rushing to buy and eat their pawpaws for their mango and banana like flavor.
I wonder if you could cultivate it on a larger scale, the demand is there. Or maybe they are more like truffles and need to be foraged.
Interesting article, now I have to try it. On a similar note, people take for granted the fact that tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate, vanilla, and blueberries all originated in the Americas.
Imagine ancient Rome without the tomato. Some things are so commonplace that we forget their origins.
Imagine Szechwan, Thailand, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, and Europe waiting millennia for peppers to reach their shores.
Likewise, peanuts to Indonesia and Africa.
Somehow sweet potatoes got from the Amazon to Polynesia centuries before Europeans did.
There are two competing theories on the initial population of the Americas. The first was a land bridge theory which suggests hunter-gatherers tracked mammoths across the once-frozen Bering Strait bridge of modern Russia/Alaska, but a newer and more popular theory is that Polynesian peoples arrived by boat navigation.
Apparently, sweet potatoes arrived in Polynesia around 1,200 and 1,300 AD, which gives a lot of credit to the idea that the first human inhabitants of the Americas arrived by boat from Polynesia.
Polynesians came along tens of thousands of years later, starting from Taiwan and spreading out to southeast Asia, the Pacific, and Madagascar. They would have sailed from Pacific islands to Peru or Chile, and picked up sweet potato there. (Surprisingly, not potatoes or peanuts, although they could have taken and then lost those.)
We have certain evidence of hominins in California 130,000 years ago -- H. erectus, Neanderthal, Sap., or "other" -- although no evidence they left descendants.
They’re pretty easy to find once you recognize the smell of the overripe rotting paw paws that have fell onto the ground (think fermented fruit with a sour scent). You can even gently shake a smaller tree and take cover as a few tennis ball sized fruits hit the ground.
"This publication is intended as an overview of pawpaw production, including overall culture, pests, harvest, postharvest handling, marketing, and research that seeks to advance the pawpaw’s potential for commercial development"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melicoccus_bijugatus
They are delicious, but have many of the same problems as pawpaws.