No Wall link https://archive.ph/H3u1Q
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Even the pawpaw king acknowledges that the flavor is an acquired taste. That tells me all I need to know. That and the one I tasted once.
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I think you should taste Custard Apple/Sugar Apple, it’s related to Paw Paw but more pleasant.
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The reason the guy said that is because his fruit are wild seedlings, not cultivars. Actual named varieties are generally not an acquired taste.
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They taste like a weird, slightly fruitier banana to me. Not bad, but maybe not worth a ton of effort. However, it seems like with them becoming more popular and new varieties being developed, they might not have reached their true potential yet.
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I beg to differ. Pawpaw is fruit for acquired taste and texture. I know people who don’t like the taste, people who don’t like the texture and people who are turned off by both.
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I wonder at some point if these publications will feature people pulling out their pawpaw trees.
Namely, the grafted trees are expensive, slow growing, and pollination challenged. And years after planting, when you finally get fruit, and after you spit out all the seeds, you have to pray you don’t get the aftertaste. Furthermore, in NE Arkansas, ripening dates roughly overlap with Asian pears, figs, muscadines, and watermelons; and after tasting some wild pawpaws this season from two different local patches, I know that I’m never going to eat even a named pawpaw when I can be eating those other fruits.
I apologize for the negativity, but there has to be some folks realistically pushing back against the hype.
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I doubt anyone would say the same about apples if they only ate two wild crabapples that they didnt like.
Its definitely an acquired taste i wouldn’t dispute that. And not all varieties are good but when you have a good variety that has ripened properly you will see the major difference. I have found 3 wild trees with decent tasting fruit after eating from hundreds of wild ones. Wild ones are not even comparable.
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In my opinion this guy is the modern PawPaw King
If you want to learn more than you ever wanted to about pawpaws he tells a wonderful story.
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undisputed
Something interesting about pawpaw is that it is known to produce an acquired distaste- sort of a rare thing. I’ve experienced this to some extent, and others have noted here and elsewhere after growing and harvesting pawpaws for years. This is different than people being turned off initially- there are always going to be plenty of those for something out of the ordinary. Im talking about people who have put much work and care into producing tgem and want very much to like them. Youll read in old publications that they are “too rich” or something to that effect, or that “only young boys like them”. Those comments made no sense to me when I came across them nearly 20 years ago as my paw paw growing journey began, but I understand now what they were getting at.
Forager / author Sam Thayer has a notion regarding edibility as a spectrum or continuum- not strictly “edible” and “poisonous”. Essentially, the idea is that anything will make you sick or cause other negative repercussions (revulsion) if you eat too much of it. All foods vary in their relative food value. Some things are staples and can be eaten and enjoyed in quantity. Others are more of a little dab’ll do ya. I’ve discovered over the years, as have many others, that paw paws generally fall more squarely in the latter category.
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He grew up about 15 mins from my farm… and the first pawpaw that i ate was 5 mins from his home town at my grandmas house.
There are words to describe the flavor…but sometimes even words cannot.
The ripe pawpaw was firm but yielding, like an avocado. I cut it open, sucked the flesh from the peel, and spat out the big, flat seeds. The flesh was yellow orange with a luscious texture, almost like a custard. But it was the taste—luxurious, sweet, with a long finish—that threw me. It tasted tropical, the fruit of a tree rooted in Costa Rica with three-thousand-mile-long branches. The flavor was not unlike a banana. It also had hints of mango and papaya, even pineapple. But none of the “tastes like” descriptors do it justice. A pawpaw tastes like a pawpaw. There’s nothing else like it.
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Neil Peterson used to post in this forum but I don’t know if he still does.
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As I’ve said many times to many people, give pawpaws a few hundred or a few thousand years of breeding efforts like apples have, and then we’ll talk about a fair comparison. I don’t know that pawpaws will ever be the best fruit to all for obvious challenges related to year round availability, but avocados and bananas weren’t available year round not long ago.
I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind with words on a forum, just offering some perspective. After a few years of foraging wild fruit, I’ve found myself reaching for a pawpaw to snack over the apples, jujubes, and pears on the counter beside them. Maybe it’s the novelty, maybe the subconscious acceptance of seasonal availability and short shelf life, maybe I’m getting used to the taste and texture and enjoying it now that I know what to look for. I will say, I far prefer firmer green fruit over brown pawpaws (some people love them like over ripe bananas).
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me too. and creamier, milder flavored cultivars
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Exactly. It’s like if everyone only had Granny Smith apples and said apples aren’t sweet.
Some pawpaws are strong, some are not.
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Having grown up eating custard apple in India, I find paw-paws can be an acquired test/texture. Species grown in India has defined pulp around the seed which when eaten at perfect ripeness is firm with slightly chewy texture. Picture below shows a nicely ripened fruit. If they get overripe they get mushy as pawpaws.
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This describes me. I really liked pawpaws initially. But any pawpaw, including so-called high quality varieties cause discomfort after eating more than a little bit. I can eat no more than 1/2 at a time.
Custard apples OTOH are delicious and I can keep eating them.
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Same here. Custard apples, I can eat them in a large quantity. Pawpaws, one or at, most two, in one sitting. More than that, I start to feel nauseous.
I am someone who grew up eating all kinds of tropical fruit (custard apples, mangoes, bananas, pineapples, and I love durian.
Pawpaws lured me in at first from what everyone described soft, creamy texture and tropical taste, etc., etc., etc. it is fine in small amount.
I stop at 2 pawpaw trees.
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That photo looks like sugar apple, Annona squamosa. Or maybe they’re just two different common names for the same thing. Either way it’s in my top 3 favorite tropical fruits.
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It is the same fruit, custard apple/sugar apple, Annona Squamosa. I don’t know why it has “apple” in its name. It does not taste anywhere like apple at all.
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