“My first taste of a wild pawpaw was the tipping point into obsession,” says Casey Roe, a marketing consultant for food businesses who has come to be known as the pawpaw forager. “I couldn’t believe the bright yellow flesh, the sweet aroma, and the surprisingly tropical flavor of this wild fruit hiding in plain sight all around us in the woods in North Carolina.”
While the taste of pawpaws — which is reminiscent of bananas and mangoes — evokes balmy equatorial environments populated with palm trees, this unique fruit is distinctly North American. In fact, it has been growing on the continent for something like 56 million years. If you’re wondering why you have sampled all kinds of foreign fruits but never even heard of a pawpaw, you’re not alone.
“You can get pawpaws in Rust Belt states, mid-Atlantic states, Appalachia, and parts of the South,” says Sara Bir, author of The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook. That covers a significant swath of the U.S., yet neither Bir nor Roe encountered one until adulthood.
“I got interested in native plants and foraging, and the pawpaw assumed this Bigfoot-like mythos,” says Bir. “My parents didn’t grow up with pawpaws and I’ve found that to be key — there’s a generational continuity.”
Unfortunately, even those with familial ties to pawpaws may no longer be familiar with them. The fruit was consumed by Indigenous people across the continent for thousands of years, until European colonization disrupted this practice during the 19th century.
“Many Natives today don’t know what they are and have no access to them,” says Devon Mihesuah, a professor at the University of Kansas, who is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation and a Chickasaw descendent. “Many tribes have been uprooted from their traditional homelands and are therefore separated from the foods their ancestors gathered.”
Mihesuah’s grandparents in Muskogee, Oklahoma, however, introduced her to pawpaws at a young age. She continues to forage the fruit for herself during its short season each year, which runs from around late August to early September, depending on the region and weather.
“Pawpaws have a strong fragrance and in the woods you can sometimes smell them before you come across them,” says Bir. Like Mihesuah and Roe, she regularly forages the fruit.
“The skin of the pawpaw ranges from green to yellow and brown depending on ripeness, and the flesh ranges from light yellow to a deep orange,” says Roe. The creamy texture of the pulp, which envelopes large, hard seeds, is often described as custardy.
But, Roe cautions, “take care to avoid consuming the skin and seeds, as they can cause illness.” She points pawpaw novices to the words of warning on the USDA website, which indicates that these parts of the fruit can lead to an upset stomach or allergic reactions.
Regardless, Roe considers herself part of a “small but passionate circle of pawpaw fanatics nationwide.” She, Bir, and Mihesuah all prefer to enjoy pawpaws in their natural form, though each has their own means of preparing them, sometimes drawing from both ancestral traditions and international influences.
“Iroquois reportedly mashed [pawpaws] and made [them] into cakes,” says Mihesuah, who carries on a similar practice of mixing pawpaw into her homemade cornbread. It also makes a wonderful addition or substitution when baking banana bread.
Pawpaws can be swapped in for other fruits in a wide range of recipes. Roe recommends “a play on peanut butter and jelly” made with a layer of freshly mashed pawpaw in place of your usual sweet spread, or adding it to bowls of yogurt with honey.
When it comes to breakfast, Bir loves making pawpaw lassis. The soft, rich fruit blends beautifully into beverages and chilled sweet treats, like smoothies, ice cream, and frozen cocktails, as well as desserts, such as Bir’s pawpaw key lime pie and pawpaw Nilla wafer pudding.
“I use a hand mixer, add a touch of agave nectar, and mix until smooth, then freeze to make sorbet,” says Mihesuah, who also likes to combine pawpaws with other native fruits like blueberries, cranberries, and persimmons.
When it comes to more savory flavors, pawpaws work especially well in condiments. “I make a green tomato and pawpaw relish that’s great with tortilla chips,” says Bir, who has also developed pawpaw-centric recipes for mustard, ketchup, and barbecue sauce.
As with many fruits, one of the best ways to make use of a windfall of pawpaws is to prepare large batches of preserves or curd.
“From the point that a pawpaw falls off the tree, it has a very short shelf life,” Roe explains. “This is what makes pawpaws such a local food and why you don’t find them in the grocery store.” A ripe one should be eaten or processed immediately. Even when stored in the refrigerator, it will last just three to five days.
When it comes to finding the fruit in its natural environment, it’s all about who you know. “Foragers can be secretive about the location of local patches,” says Roe, who shares sourcing information with those who subscribe to her newsletter. “There are some Facebook groups dedicated to pawpaws, which are a great place to start. More farms have begun growing them and sometimes they are available in season at local farmers markets.”
“If you’re west of the Mississippi, then you’ll need to travel to the pawpaws or order them online,” says Bir. Foraged, a community marketplace of foragers and farmers, is one of the only services that ships the fruit (in its frozen form), as well as seeds for planting.
Pawpaw is also slowly making its way onto seasonal restaurant menus, with a notable surge in Durham, North Carolina, thanks in large part to Roe’s work as a local advocate for the fruit. For a few weeks of the year, it may be possible to find pawpaw gelato with pawpaw caramel sauce on the dessert menu at Durham’s Mother & Sons and pawpaw ice cream sandwiches at Dashi. Fans of the fruit can also taste it in pawpaw cider at Botanist and Barrel, a cidery and winery, or the pawpaw beer named American Promise at Fullsteam Brewery.
But for the real pawpaw experience, the best thing to do is follow Mihesuah’s lead: “Usually,” she says, “I just shake a tree, break them in half, and make a mess as I stand there eating them.”
Elena Valeriote is a writer of stories about food, farming, culture, and travel that explore the connection between people and place. Her work has appeared in publications including Gastro Obscura, Modern Farmer, and Life & Thyme.
Dilek Baykara is a Turkish-American illustrator, print designer, and adventurous gastronome living in Brooklyn, New York.