Pawpaw

by Andrew Moore

  In Chicagoland, at farmers markets and fruit meet-ups, wineries and food expos, Oriana Kruszewski is known for her several varieties of candy-sweet Asian pears; they were her first love as a grower. But Oriana also likes mangoes. As a native of Hong Kong, tropical fruits were common in her childhood, and mangoes were and remain the top. So when someone, at a North American Fruit Explorers meeting, introduced her to pawpaws as a poor man’s mango, she was not impressed. “Not good,” she says. “I tasted it—it’s okay.” Still, Oriana and a friend, diligent fruit explorers, continued to hunt pawpaws in the woods of Indiana and Illinois. They gathered hundreds of pounds of fruit, grew out seedlings, and still, she wasn’t impressed. Finally, on a gathering trip in Paw Paw, Michigan, it hit her. “We shook a tree and it dropped on my head and splashed all around,” she recalls. “So I tasted it—really sweet, really good. Perfect.”

  Now, at her northern Illinois farm near the Wisconsin border, she grows several varieties of pawpaw along with Asian pears, black walnut, pine nuts, and American persimmons, selling them every October at the Green City Market in Chicago.

  When I arrive at her farm, it feels unseasonably cold and windy. Fruit has been slow to ripen everywhere, especially this far north. It’s not a new problem. To extend the ripening window, Oriana has constructed a high tunnel. Inside are about a dozen pawpaw trees. If the fruits freeze on the tree, they’ll be ruined. In about a month, Oriana will find out if the high tunnel worked and her efforts have paid off.

  This is where data, Ron Powell’s efforts to document cultivar performance in diverse conditions, would help northern growers like Oriana determine which varieties to grow. Another northern Illinois grower has reported that Shenandoah ripened in mid-October and was finished by the end of the month; that Overleese came next; and that Sunflower began at the end of October and lasted until mid-November, just after a frost. Other reports have indicated that Summer Delight is timed well for the northern Midwest—in Kentucky, it ripens as early as late July. And NC-1, a controlled cross selected by Ontarian Doug Campbell and popular in many regions, is especially suited to the North. For growers in the Upper Midwest and New England, or other cool regions, finding the earliest-ripening varieties will be important.

  The trees themselves—never mind the fruit for a moment—have proven incredibly hardy. Oriana’s pawpaws have survived winters of negative thirty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. She has even named one particularly tough tree Hardy Wonder.

  Some years Oriana’s trees haven’t borne well, again due to late ripening. Once, while her husband was working in Cincinnati, Oriana asked him to swing by Jerry Lehman’s orchard in Terre Haute and purchase every bit of fruit he could carry. They went on to sell every piece, nearly five hundred pounds’ worth, at the Chicago market.

  Pawpaws are the largest edible fruit native to the United States—but they are Canada’s fruit as well. Their Canadian range is limited to the county’s Carolinian forests in southern Ontario. Although many of those wild places have been lost to development, a few folks are working to protect existing patches, and reintroduce pawpaws throughout the province.

  As program coordinator for the Naturalized Habitat Network of Essex County and Windsor (NHN), Dan Bissonnette leads Project Pawpaw, an initiative dedicated to raising the awareness of pawpaws and its benefits. “We totally missed the boat on it,” Bissonnette told the website Our Windsor in 2012, adding that “forgetting it once grew here is cultural amnesia.”18 In 2012, the NHN published The Pawpaw Grower’s Guide for Ontario. The organization works to restore the species in native ecosystems, but also envisions pawpaws becoming a sustainable “local food resource.”

  There are a few wild patches of established pawpaws in southwest Ontario, but they are guarded secrets. I’ve spoken with several Ontarian pawpaw fans, and none has successfully located these elusive stands. In Toronto, Forbes Wild Foods, a wild foods purveyor, sells pawpaws to restaurants and farmers markets, but its supply is limited and its sources, understandably so, are rarely divulged. Luckily for Canada’s pawpaw folks, an Ontario nursery has long grown seedling pawpaws and grafted cultivars.

  Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Grimo Nut Nursery sells more than six hundred pawpaw trees a year. “Already demand has raised the possibility of a commercial industry in Ontario,” wrote journalist Sarah Elton in 2009. “When a local fruit grower lost her contract with Del Monte, Linda Grimo told her that pawpaws were the future. And Torrie Warner, who cultivates 60 acres of peaches, pears and quinces in the Niagara region, has already followed Grimo’s advice; when the local fruit-canning plant and grape-juicing facility both shut down, he replaced some of his pear trees with pawpaws. He plans to sell to the public in four years.”19

  In 2013, Toronto resident and pawpaw enthusiast Paul DeCampo nominated the Carolinian pawpaw to Slow Food Canada’s Ark of Taste. A box of Grimo’s pawpaws was shipped to Turin, Italy, for the induction, and according to DeCampo, the fruit “blew people’s minds.”

  After visiting with Oriana, I stay the night in Chicago. The next day, rounding Lake Michigan, I leave the interstate to get a look at the Great Lake. I’m at a township park, and as I walk toward the shore I can hear its ocean-like roar. I walk down a set of wooden steps, which descend from a parking lot through a brief bit of woods and down to the lake. I can see the sand of the beach ahead. And to my right, a pawpaw tree. I don’t know why it’s still true, but I’m a bit surprised each time I see one. I knew they were reported to be native to this area, but I really hadn’t expected to find a pawpaw on the banks of Lake Michigan. But I do. It’s a small sprout, about two feet tall, growing under taller hickories and other shade trees. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, I’m only a few miles from Paw Paw, Michigan. One road leading to the town is Paw Paw Road, which passes Paw Paw Lake as it follows Paw Paw Creek.

  Corwin Davis selected superior pawpaws from the wilds of Michigan in settings similar to this. In autumn, pawpaw leaves turn a striking bright yellow. Because the fruit ripens later in Michigan—and autumn comes sooner—fruit would still be on the trees when the change occurred, which made finding the trees, and then the fruit, easier for Davis.

  Davis spent more than thirty years exploring the woods, propagating, disseminating material, and experimenting with growing pawpaws. By most accounts, he was a fun, eccentric pawpaw grower (I recall Colleen Anderson’s “off the round” comment); I’ve been told he played the fiddle at least one NNGA meeting, and promoted, with humor and sincerity, the most unusual pollination techniques. I would have enjoyed meeting him.

  Davis did most of his pawpaw exploring near Bellevue, Michigan, located at the northern edge of the tree’s native range. He shipped plant material across the United States, including California (“These people will eat anything that will hold still long enough”), as well as France, Spain, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand.20 And yet he was surprised, and perhaps a bit disappointed, that so few others were in the woods selecting pawpaws. “Inquires and orders for trees and seed come from the Paw Paw’s best habitat,” he wrote in 1983. “This is 100 miles south of here. Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee have far more Paw Paws per square mile than Michigan. Yet orders from these states are more numerous than any other area. It makes one wonder if anyone is out looking for superior clones.”21 Of course, in those states pawpaw culture (and eaters) had persisted, so it makes sense that orders for grafted material and seed wood would be high. But Davis made a good point. His selections—cultivars including Davis, Prolific, Taylor, and Taytwo—as well as subsequent crosses and seedlings of his material, are still among the best. Considering they all originated in a limited geographic area, it means either that Michigan’s wild pawpaws are for some reason superior to others, or that there are equally good pawpaws waiting to be discovered, and bred—in at least twenty-six states. “Let us put papaws on the table of everyone possible,” Davis wrote. “Us old folks can not stay around forever. If we are
to progress in any endeavor, it is the young ones that will have to carry on.”22

  At Paw Paw Lake I find a small grove of trees, and even some fruit hanging from one tree. In Paw Paw itself, however, grapes are king. There are more than one hundred wineries in Michigan, and Paw Paw’s St. Julian Winery is the state’s oldest, having made wine in the town since 1936. But there is an overlap between pawpaws and grapes. Paul DeCampo has noticed that the range in which pawpaws thrive in Canada coincides with the province’s grape-growing range. So at the fringe of the two plants’ growing range, they must share space. Years ago, pawpaw rope was the preferred fiber for binding grapevines. “In the Pays du Vaux, straw is used for this purpose,” observed German explorer Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied in 1832, “on the Rhine, red osiers (Sali purpurea); in the gardens, the inner bark of the linden tree; [and] in North America, the inner bark of the pawpaw tree (Annona triloba), which, however, must first have been soaked in water, like flax.”23

  I don’t find any pawpaw wine (made from Asimina triloba, that is), but I do see a few trees, including a pair of large ones at Paw Paw High School. It was one of these trees that dropped a perfect one on Oriana’s head.

  Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor is a deli, sure, but it’s also an artisanal food emporium, a showcase of locally made cheese, charcuterie, Michigan-raised fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy. They make sandwiches and salads, but are also eager for visitors to try various types of imported and Michigan-made products. They even publish books on food and culture. It’s a place, I’ve been told, where the employees feel like they’re part of a family—a friend of mine worked there through college and still swoons at the mention of Zingerman’s. They’ve got sister enterprises, including Zingerman’s Roadhouse, a restaurant, and Zingerman’s Creamery, a gelato company. So naturally, Michigan’s most distinctive native fruit, the pawpaw, belongs here.

  Around town, University of Michigan students don heavy boots and scarves, flannel shirts and knit caps. Whereas pawpaws are a late-summer fruit in the South, up north they’re an autumn treat. Rhode Island’s Rocky Point Farm even hosts an annual pawpaw event called Pumpkins and Pawpaws.

  My host, a grad student at the University of Michigan, has rallied her friends to meet us at a local bar. We’ve brought pawpaws along—one of Jerry Lehman’s largest (about the size of a grapefruit) and, for comparison, a wild one from Missouri. After a couple of rounds, at least a dozen friends have arrived. I place the pawpaws on the table as a centerpiece and attempt to give the fruit’s condensed history. Then finally it’s time to slice them open.

  One friend, who is from Nigeria, is not impressed. “That’s the smallest pawpaw I’ve ever seen!” he says. In Nigeria, the word pawpaw means one thing: papaya. I’ve brought Mr. Lehman’s fruit tonight because it’s one of the largest pawpaws anyone will likely ever encounter, only to have it mistaken for a tiny, sorry excuse for a papaya.

  Marc Boone, a recently retired pipefitter, has for decades been growing the most unusual fruits hardy enough to survive Michigan’s winters. In addition to apples—heirloom cultivars from the United States and Russia—he grows plums, pears, and other novel fruits. Marc discovered pawpaws by accident. At a point when he was reading lots of Brazilian literature, he read one novel in which two characters are fighting for the same lover. They are persuaded, however, to put aside their differences and share a jackfruit (which is the world’s largest tree fruit, bigger than most watermelons, and is found in the tropics). The jackfruit indeed changes their minds. This reminded Boone of a temperate tree, the pawpaw, that he’d read was related to jackfruit. It’s not true, but by the time he found out, he’d already added several hundred pawpaws to his orchard.

  Boone eats most of the fruit he grows. He sells some occasionally—and his dogs leap into the trees to eat even more—but he’s more of an experimenter than an entrepreneur. However, his aunt once urged him, repeatedly, to sell his pawpaws to Zingerman’s Creamery. She called Zingerman’s and told them the man growing them lived just a few miles away. His aunt saw the promise pawpaws held for both the buyer and seller, and eventually the two sides came together.

  Boone sells his pawpaws whole to Zingerman’s, whose staff originally processed the fruit by hand. Recently, Zingerman’s has collaborated with Michigan State University’s Dennis Fulbright, who developed an automated hopper for separating seeds from pulp (separating skins, however, is still done manually). The hopper was designed by an Italian firm that has developed similar machines for processing chestnuts, among other crops. Because of this machine, an informal co-op of pawpaw growers has coalesced around MSU. This infrastructure (and the organization of existing horticultural groups) has allowed pawpaws greater exposure and marketability: They’ve even been sold at Whole Foods stores in Michigan.

  Since the folks at Zingerman’s buy tons of fruit—nearly all of the Boone’s harvest, and the fruit of other growers—they amass an impressive stockpile of pulp, and their Paw Paw Gelato is currently available all year. Ice cream shops in other states also make pawpaw ice cream—some have for nearly a decade—but only at Zingerman’s is it available year-round. The feat is a pawpaw first. But it’s one that could easily be repeated elsewhere. Boone has no helping hands on the farm. His trees—low-maintenance natives—require so little attention that he’s able to produce several hundred pounds of fruit for a single buyer with ease.

  Under each tree, in rows, Boone lays three to five feet of straw to cushion the pawpaws’ fall. (A Kentucky grower also reported using hay—left over from her horses—in the pawpaw orchard. She took precautions a step farther and covered the hay with sheets. The fruit was neither bruised nor dirty). Boone has a hay field, so it doesn’t cost him much. With many fruit trees, mulching this high can be a problem. Especially in winter, layers of straw invite voles, which are attracted by the warmth but then stay to eat the tree’s bark. But Kentucky State University has observed that voles do not damage pawpaw trunks, and that it’s likely thanks to the trees’ acetogenin compounds.24 As an added bonus, straws and other mulches build the organic matter of the orchard’s soil.

  In season, Marc walks the rows twice a day, dragging a large plastic bin by a long rope, picking up pawpaws from the straw beds. Since the fruit will ultimately be turned into ice cream, an occasional scratch or bruise is less of an issue than if their destination was a produce stand. Boone’s fruit won’t be mailed across the country, either, so it doesn’t require the careful selection—for optimum ripeness—performed at Jim Davis’s Deep Run Orchard. Other than delivering them to the Creamery, this is all the work that the pawpaws require once they’ve begun to drop.

  I walk with Boone, picking pawpaws from the straw beds and checking the fruits in the trees, which are largely far from ripe. Then we come upon an enormous pawpaw, one that I swear rivals Jerry Lehman’s entry. Marc remains cool but allows me to take it with me to the Ohio festival, and enter it in the contest.

  In the morning, before leaving Ann Arbor en route to the festival, I need to fulfill my mission to grab a pint of Zingerman’s Paw Paw Gelato. There is already a long line at the bakery, folks getting coffee, pastries, breakfast. The label is playful and, in my opinion, captures the spirit of pawpaw enthusiasts. Zingerman’s had requested that Marc supply them with slightly riper pawpaws, preferring the stronger caramel flavor. The dark-hued gelato bears this out.

  In a peculiar way, I feel let down. Not by the gelato itself, which is excellent, but from the experience. I’m not sure what I was expecting—more fanfare; neon lights pointing to the elusive, one-of-a-kind, only-at-Zingerman’s Paw Paw Gelato; streamers and confetti dropping when I spotted it—but instead it’s just a regular pint of pawpaw gelato alongside all the other flavors. Nothing out of the ordinary. But then I realize this is exactly what the fruit’s ardent supporters have long envisioned: that pawpaws would become part of American agriculture, alongside apples, pears, squash, and tomatoes; that pawpaw gelato
or ice cream would be no more exotic than peach or strawberry. After all, there were once Pawpaw Moon celebrations; we feasted on them on the frontier; we relied on them in lean times but more often ate them just because we loved them; we named rivers and islands, bayous, and coves for them, even towns from Virginia to Kansas. Shouldn’t pawpaws be ordinary, too?

  EPILOGUE

  I end where I began: at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival. The weather, as I’ve come to expect, is great. I enter Marc Boone’s fruit in the largest-pawpaw contest, but it does not take first place. Jerry Lehman has won again.

  In the few years since I first learned about pawpaws, they’ve made huge strides. More and more cookbooks and gardening books include the fruit and tree; they can be found at more and more farmers markets, from New York City’s Union Square to Big Stone Gap, Virginia. A Louisville-based chef plans to include pawpaw flan in his upcoming cookbook; and at the 2014 International Biscuit Festival, in Knoxville, Tennessee, a pawpaw pecan buttermilk biscuit (topped with Tennessee whiskey and sorghum caramel!) was a runner-up for the People’s Choice Award. If a fruit can be hip, pawpaws are. Pawpaws are included in municipal tree sales and giveaways—from New York to Missouri—for habitat restoration and improving urban tree canopies. Festivals now occur not only in Ohio but also Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. And the North Carolina Paw Paw Festival has grown to an annual attendance of well over a thousand. In Iowa, the recently planted Quad City Food Forest included numerous pawpaws among its ninety fruit and nut trees, and at my home in Pittsburgh, young trees can be found in several community gardens and on restaurant menus. Each season, several breweries announce the release of their first-ever pawpaw beer, from the Paw Paw Berliner Weisse of Full Pint Brewing (Pennsylvania) to the Paw Paw French Saison of the Missouri Ozarks’ Piney River Brewing. Durham’s Fullsteam Brewery has returned to the fruit, this time with a hoppy pawpaw ale. Pawpaw gelato and ice cream remain fixtures at Zingerman’s and Ellen’s Homemade, but has also appeared at The Bent Spoon in Princeton, New Jersey, and elsewhere. Jeni Britton Bauer (of Columbus, Ohio’s Jeni’s Spendid Ice Creams) even made a batch of pawpaw ice cream for a recent Slow Food Columbus farm dinner.