The Custardy American Fruit That You Won't Find At The Grocery Store

If you walk around the produce section of any well-stocked grocery store, you can find things like bananas from Guatemala, papayas from Mexico, and grapes from Chile. Many of our fruits and vegetables are imported from other countries, particularly when they aren't otherwise in season in the United States. Curiously, there is one native North American fruit that you'll likely never see on the shelves of your supermarket, and that's the pawpaw fruit.

I had the pleasure of trying pawpaw when I lived in Pennsylvania. A client of my husband's grew them on her property and gave him a few to take home. They were green, oblong-shaped fruits (they resembled small, unripe mangos) but the inside was a yellow-colored pulp with large black seeds. I remember the flesh being very creamy, almost like custard, and the flavor reminded me of a mix of banana, pineapple, and orange. Frankly, it was divine. After some research, I learned that pawpaws grow abundantly in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states, and as far south as northern Florida. So, why had I never heard of them before?

The reason you've probably never seen this fruit in a store is because they are extremely fragile, with a very short shelf life. Once they fall or are plucked from a tree, you basically have a three to five-day window before they turn mushy and brown. That doesn't exactly fit the shipping or storage demands of commercial produce departments. If you can't grow them, your best bet is seeking them out at a farmers market or in CSA organizations where they'll likely be found in the early fall.

I fully endorse eating pawpaw fruit immediately after you get your hands on them, standing over the sink, spooning out the flesh from the skin, and spitting out the inedible dark seeds. The pulp is so soft and creamy that cutting it up into slices or chunks isn't easy. If you want to use the fruit in dishes or recipes, choose ones where you can incorporate the fruit in puree form. Good choices would be puddings, crème brûlée (which you can make without a torch), smoothies, preserves, yogurt bowls, ice cream, and even beverages. If you happen to dabble in home brewing, pawpaw is an excellent fruit to experiment with.

Pawpaws are members of the Annonaceae family of fruits, which also include cherimoya, soursop, and sweetsop fruits, all of which have creamy, custard-like interiors with tropical fruit flavors, and large, dark seeds. Similar to pawpaws, they can be difficult to find in stores. It's worth checking out tropical fruit purveyors to see if they grow and ship any of these fruity diamonds in the rough. If they are not in season, you'll have to wait until they are, which is totally worth your time.