Jack Keller has a winemaking site, he has made wine with everything from Chardonnay grapes to sand burrs. He does have link to paw paw wine on his site.
I have tried exactly 2 paw paws thus far, both collected wild in the Saint Louis area, and my thoughts so far are:
The taste and texture are promising. They won’t be Mangos, or anything else–they are paw paws. At the same time, there isn’t much like them I can find in Wisconsin, without visiting the “tropicals” section of my local grocery’s produce section
Again with a northern Midwest bias, the things (pawpaws) grow some crazy-big, wild-looking leaves…
I would grow the dumb things as an ornamental. Since they fruit, in a fruit I suspect I will very much enjoy given my limited, wild sampling, double-bonus. Looks like they do not dry well, but in addition to just eating out-of-hand I could see them being a great and easy substitute in any recipe that uses bananas or even things like pumpkin…or ferment them…
I’m a lazy guy, but if I was motivated enough to go evangelical on ANYTHING it would likely be this: You can make wine and cider at home. Folks have for millennia, in things as unsanitary as wooden bowls, stone crocks, and even animal skins or organs…if they could, you can too. So make ye some pawpaw wine. I have not, yet, with all emphasis on “yet,” but some of the best wines I have ever made have been with things like crabapples (very nice), wild grapes, etc…I don’t know how a pawpaw wine or pawpaw bread might be, but can’t imagine either being bad…
I didn’t know you could eat Autumn Olives. I watched a couple youtube videos and then went out and tried some from the back yard. They’re pretty good, and I read they get better after a frost. Thats a long time from now. It would be hard to believe that there would still be some left on the shrubs by then. They said they are astringent now to wait till later in the fall, but mine tasted sweet now. We have those and Honeysuckle growing all over around here!
Honestly I don’t think there is a big difference in pawpaw taste amongst the better cultivars, but Maria’s Joy is a little bit better perhaps. Overleese is also excellent.
Flip a coin Its not worth much time in my opinion. Maybe others will chime in with more firm opinions. Do make sure to get two varieties well spread out in terms of ripening season, you can only eat so many at a time and they don’t keep.
I have eaten many a Sunflower as that tree is in a good spot. Perfectly fine pawpaw with very large fruits. Overleese is a bit better perhaps. Shenandoah seems pretty similar to Overleese to me so maybe get only one of those two. One of the other Peterson varieties might be a good choice. I have Susquehanna but it has suffered many indignities - its over 10 years old and is not yet 4’ tall! I kept having to move it around etc.
You can get an earlier variety like Summer Delight and any one of those on your list plus adding Halvin to the list. England Orchard carries Summer Delight and Halvin.
Edible Landscaping lists Sunflower as the latest ripening… good for extending the season. They list Mango, NC-1, and Allegheny as early. I may recall that @Matt_in_Maryland really likes Allegheny??
I like Shenandoah too. It is my 2nd favorite pawpaw behind Allegheny. Shenandoah has a lighter color flesh with a mild banana-pudding texture/flavor. It is a good late-season pawpaw.
I don’t care much for Susquehanna. The fruits are enormous, but they have so much true pawpaw flavor that I find them funky and overpowering.
I have heard many reports that Overleese is a good one. It seems to be an older variety utilized quite a bit for breeding purposes. I’ve not yet had the opportunity to taste Overleese.
Allegheny is my favorite. I’ve written about it extensively in other threads that can be searched for and found on this forum:
@Mickster Mango variety of pawpaw grows like a weed compared to every other pawpaw variety I’ve tried and I love its taste. If I were starting from scratch I would phone up Edible Landscape in Afton, Va and ask them if they have three Mango seedlings, not grafted. Pawpaws come pretty true to seed so you’d most likely get the great Mango taste, fast growth and the three seedlings would pollinate each other. You might knock one or two years off time to first fruit. Then after they start producing graft the extra early and extra late varieties.
Edible I believe sells Mango both grafted and Mango seedlings- be sure to specify seedling. Some people believe seedlings survive better than grafted pawpaws too. That’s my best advice from a rank amateur.
Here is some information about vitamin content and varieties of pawpaw I thought was interesting http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/pawpaw/cooking.htm . At a first glance at varieties Sunflower would be one of my first choices since it’s origin was Kansas.
Pawpaw Leather. Don’t try except if you wish to experiment on yourself. Over at least 10 years I have received reports from different individuals doing it. In every case they became violently ill followed by vomiting. Of course we don’t know why. That is expensive laboratory research. And if some people did not become ill, they did not write me. … Neal Peterson
Its not worth much time in my opinion. Maybe others will chime in with more firm opinions. Do make sure to get two varieties well spread out in terms of ripening season, you can only eat so many at a time and they don’t keep.