The 'alien banana' that grows in Canada: pawpaws taste like banana, mango, and pineapple
Behold the pawpaw
The pawpaw, a tropical-tasting fruit native to North America, once thrived from Florida to southern Ontario but was largely forgotten after colonization. Chef Tawnya Brant describes its custardy flesh as a mix of banana, mango, and pineapple. The fruit's short shelf life and bruising make commercial sales difficult, yet small orchards in Ontario, Quebec, and B.C. are seeing renewed interest, with some farmers using llama manure to attract pollinators.
What do you think tropical tastes like? If that was a flavour, if that was the smell on its own, that's probably exactly what a pawpaw would be.
- Cider9986
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.
- dang
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)
- comrade1234
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.
- PeterHolzwarth
Maybe don't over do frequent eating of the fruit and others from its family:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba#Potential_toxi...
- n2dasun
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