I'm generally not a fan of the Fall season. Everything that was once green is now turning brown; what was once blooming and full of life now looks...well, not that. Also, it's getting colder, but at least the bugs are on a shortened timer --- especially mosquitos.
Make no mistake: I love that apples are in season, and it's pretty hard to beat a drink of in-season cider. Not to mention, we typically associate Fall with crop harvest, which means (hopefully lots of) grain being stored ready to market (hopefully profitably).
But there's one thing that is unique not just to North America, but this part of the US for many thousands of years, and that is the largest tree-borne fruit native to the continent. I'm talking about the pawpaw. Other names include "The Poor Man's Banana", "The Indiana/Hoosier Banana", and "The Mississippi Banana". Quite the pattern in the alternative names, no?
Anywhere from mid-September to early-October, the pawpaw crop in Western KY is in full swing. Sure, I grew up hearing of pawpaws, but never took the opportunity to (a) look for them, or (b) eat one. I only sort of knew what they looked like, but didn't give it much else thought. Maybe it was during COVID that my interest was rekindled.
The pawpaw flower begins as an unassuming, even unappealing brownish attraction in the mid to late Spring,
and then progresses into the Fall-time fruit that folks like myself find a true delicacy! The window of opportunity is narrow indeed if you want to get to them before the opossums, deer, and racoons.
The trees tend to be in the edge of the woods and fencerows. They're fans of generally more shade where available, though I have seen a few out in the open. The structure is unimpressive and spindly, and they don't grow super tall, so the fruit is typically not difficult to reach (or be brought within reach).
There's not a ton of consensus on flavor for this fruit. The common theme for most people is, as the informal names for the pawpaw suggested, banana. I have described it as an intense fruit medley consisting of watermelon, mango, blueberry, and banana. A fellow ag economist I recently introduced to pawpaws was pineapple-banana (from Indiana, he'd heard of but never tasted a Hoosier Banana before). One of the fellows who works on the farm with us, an avid connoisseur, described the taste as vanilla custard. Interestingly enough, I have found that pawpaws grown in the northern end of the county (woodlands covering rocky peaks and cliffsides) more closely reflect that tone than those grown in the southern end of the county (lower lying with scattered swamps, pockets of fertile farmland with gentler slopes).
What gets a lot of people is the texture: somewhere between very ripe avocado and a "sat-on banana". Not exactly appealing, especially if food consistency carries high marginal utility for you. I can generally get around that, but being a fan of avocados (less so of sat-on bananas) this adds to the uniqueness of the pawpaw.
And how very unique it is. If you get the chance, go try one!
