

There's one flaw in the pawpaw By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY ESCALON, Calif.  For most Americans, pawpaws fall in the same hazily remembered class of foods from childhood fantasies as sugarplums. The pawpaw fruit tastes similar to a mango or banana. Ohio University Not to John Lagier of Lagier Ranches in the San Joaquin Valley. He's in search of a buyer for 300 pounds of frozen pawpaw pulp. And not to chefs and the slow-food movement, which fosters disappearing indigenous foods. They are determined to put the pawpaw back on the American plate, as it was during native and pioneer times. In fact, Slow Food DC plans to start a campaign this winter to promote the pawpaw and other native fruits. Lagier wouldn't still have quart tubs of pulp if not for a promise by a fruit broker back in 1999 that, if Lagier planted pawpaws, the broker could sell them. "I drove up to Oregon, bought a truckload of saplings, planted an acre and then next year the guy went out of business," says Lagier, a fourth-generation farmer. A renewed interest in an old tree fruit Inside story: A pawpaw fruit reveals seeds and meat when it's cut.



The pawpaw's official name is Asimina triloba but it also goes by false banana, custard apple, Michigan or Kentucky banana, and sometimes  mistakenly  papaya.



It is the largest North American edible tree fruit and is native from southern New York and southern Ontario in Canada as far west as eastern Kansas and Texas. The pulp is high in vitamin C, minerals and anti-oxidants.



Pawpaws have grown in America for ages  literally. Indians ate them and the expedition of Spain's Hernando DeSoto 1540 found several tribes growing the fruit. In 1736, Quaker botanists John Bartram and Peter Collinson sent specimens to England.



Pawpaw trees grow up to 30 feet high and have big, droopy leaves. They're in the Annonaceae family. Other members grow in the tropics and are known to marketgoers in Central and South America as the soursop, guanabana, cherimoya, sugar apple and atemoya.



Source: Appalachian Home Cooking and USA TODAY research. So during his harvest season, which ended here about three weeks ago, Lagier and his daughters bring fresh pawpaws every Saturday to their stall at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. But even there, at a market known as a magnet for serious foodies and chefs who welcome the most obscure fruits and vegetables, customers puzzle over the mottled green-brown fruits the size of small mangos. When he can get them to actually taste the pawpaws, they're hooked. A quick cut to one end, a squeeze of the creamy, custardy flesh straight into the mouth and customers lap up the explosion of flavors that are reminiscent of banana, papaya, coconut, cream and even hints of caramel in the ripest. But five minutes of explanation for each sale isn't the way to move a harvest's worth of fruit. Lagier, like generations of would-be pawpaw farmers before him, has run into the fruit's greatest weakness: So delicate that they can can't stand shipping without turning to brown mush, pawpaws never make it to stores. Shoppers never see them, so there's no demand for them. It's not for lack of trying — about 90 years worth of efforts that continue today. In 1916 the American Genetics Association's Journal of Heredity launched a contest for the best pawpaw. Agriculture in 19th and early 20th century America underwent a breeding revolution, with the domestication of many crops that had been wild. Blueberries, pecans and cranberries all made the leap. The pawpaw didn't, says Neal Peterson, known in some quarters as the Johnny Appleseed of the pawpaw. He's been working to breed pawpaws since 1974, when he first tasted one at West Virginia University. Peterson discovered a long history of pawpaw breeding that had fallen into obscurity and set out to rescue the fruit, eventually growing 1,500 seedlings and joining forces with Kentucky State University, which launched a breeding program in 1990. The goal was to come up with a shippable variety that would bring the pawpaw back to its rightful place in the pantheon of authentic American fruits and perhaps help farmers in the Southeast find a replacement for tobacco, says Kentucky State's Kirk Pomper, pawpaw program leader. Today 11 universities around the country are running regional trials on 28 pawpaw varieties. Their success hinges on making the pawpaw sturdier. A national fruit company once contacted Peterson about including pawpaws in a specialty basket. He shipped off some of his best samples and the response was "almost rude," he says. "They said, 'These fruit have cosmetic problems!' " Another potential savior appeared this year in the form of the slow-food movement, which recently discovered the pawpaw. Cultural historian Katherine Dillon wrote about it in the latest issue of Slow Food USA's magazine Snail, detailing the fruit's history with eastern woodland tribes and early settlers. "There's a real future for the pawpaw in terms of savory recipes," she says. "One of my favorites is a crab, pawpaw and corn fritter served with a fresh pawpaw and green-tomato relish." Even in its delicate state, the pawpaw is benefiting from the growing emphasis on regional and traditional foods at high-end restaurants. Chef Jim Gerhardt of the Limestone restaurant in Louisville uses them in a soufflé with sassafras sauce. "People like it, but they can't place the fruit," he says. And if the pawpaw goes mainstream, there are other obscure fruits waiting in the wings. Dillon ticks off a pantry's worth, including the American persimmon, the native heartberry, the maypop, the medlar and the beach plum, still awaiting comebacks. For more information: • www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/default.htm •www.petersonpawpaws.com •www.integrationacres.com