This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Ohio Pawpaw Festival. I’ve been known to travel far and wide for festivals celebrating foods that are relevant to Maryland.
Some festivals are better than others and I have to say that the Ohio Pawpaw Festival is probably the best of the bunch (pun intended) I’ve attended so far. Paw-paws were EVERYWHERE, from the beer to the food to the artwork. I had some paw-paw pizza, paw-paw curry puff, paw-paw ice cream, a few of those paw-paw beers and I watched a paw-paw tasting and information session.
I also got the chance to shake the hand of this interviewee and finally get a copy of his book in hand. I became aware of this book because of the Michael Twitty introduction and I knew instantly that this would provide some good information to go along with my (forthcoming) paw-paw cream pie recipe.
The most satisfying part in all this is that the book has turned out to be entertaining. One reviewer compares Moore to such writers as Mark Kurlansky and I have to agree that this is a book that I will be recommending to friends. It is an engaging read beyond my own obsessive interest in these things. So without further ado here are a few words with the author:
Tell us about
yourself, writing background, etc.
I am the former development news editor of Pop City, a
weekly e-magazine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and my stories have appeared in
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Daily Yonder, The Biscayne Times, and the
Lakeland Ledger.
What is it about
paw-paws that made you feel that a book was necessary?
To many of us enthusiasts the pawpaw is endlessly
interesting—it’s the only member of the vast Annonacea family not confined to the tropics; it’s the
largest edible fruit native to the United States; and it tastes great, like a
banana-mango mix, with a custard-like texture. And yet despite these
exceptional traits the pawpaw is largely unknown. When I first learned about
the pawpaw I wondered how did this unusual fruit come to be, and why is it that
so few of us know that it even exists?
Then I began to wonder, does it have a future as a commercial crop, on
farms and in backyards? I continued to ask questions, and traveled to meet
pawpaw growers in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland, and once it became
clear I had caught the pawpaw bug I was already well-along the path to writing
this book.
Did you find any
interesting historical facts about the way these fruit might have been used by
people, and what kinds of people ate them and how?
Various Native American groups ate fresh pawpaws and likely
cooked or dried them too. The inner bark of pawpaw trees was also used as fiber
for a number of purposes, including the stringing of fish. Over the centuries,
the new Americans—Europeans and Africans, among others—also ate pawpaws, and
the tradition of late summer pawpaw pickin’ has endured in some locales, but
especially in the southern Appalachian Mountains, including Western Maryland
and West Virginia. There are even places named for the fruit—including Paw Paw,
West Virginia, and Paw Paw Cove, in Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
In 1916, a contest was held by the Journal of Heredity to find the best pawpaws in America. Fruit was
mailed to the journal’s office from 26 states, and included over 230 entries.
And among the top seven fruits was a selection from Maryland.
Beginning around 1990, Neal Peterson conducted his pawpaw
breeding experiments in Maryland, in cooperation with the University of
Maryland.
Today, the largest commercial orchard currently in
production, is located near Westminster, Maryland. The farm mail-orders pawpaws
all across the country.
How did you end up
connecting with Michael Twitty for the introduction?
I met Michael Twitty a number of years ago when he spoke in
Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University. If you’ve had the privilege of
listening to a presentation by Micheal, you already know he’s a talented,
dynamic speaker. And if that wasn’t enough, Michael was familiar with pawpaws
and shared his knowledge of how the fruit contributed to the diets of African
Americans, before and after the Civil War, and the tree’s other uses—including baiting
nocturnal mammals such as opossums and raccoons.
What were some of
your best resources in researching the history portion of the book?
There were so many great resources, but I’ll choose two to
highlight: Daniel F. Austin’s Florida
Ethnobotany, for early American history; and the library of the Northern
Nut Growers Association, for its wonderful archive of writings by experimental
fruit growers of the past century. Pawpaw has attracted curious characters for
a long time, and I’m thankful these horticulturalists took the time to record
their thoughts and observations, and that the NNGA has remained a repository
for that information.
Have you tried the
different types of paw-paws? Do you have a preference and/or can you describe
the differences?
All pawpaws, regardless of cultivars (or cultivated
varieties) are of the same species, Asimina
triloba. When plant people find exceptionally good pawpaws—“good” often
being a subjective term, but usually with respect to taste, size, or yield—they
sometimes name the tree and propagate it via grafting. There are a number of
pawpaw cultivars available through various nurseries. In the early 2000s, Neal
Peterson, one of the pawpaw’s longtime champions, released six named varieties
after several decades of analysis and observation. These Peterson Pawpaws are
all named for American rivers with Native American names—Shenandoah,
Susquehanna, Potomac, Allegheny, and so on—as a tribute to the fruit’s earliest
eaters and horticulturalists.
Do you have any
information to share on their nutritional benefits?
Pawpaws are thought to be highly nutritious, offering high
amounts of potassium, vitamin C, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, and
niacin, among other vitamins and minerals. However much nutritional research is
yet to be done.
Do you have a
favorite recipe or way to eat them?
My favorite way to eat a pawpaw is fresh from the tree, and
my favorite prepared dish is without a doubt ice cream.
I collected some
paw paw pulp and froze it one year and I found that parts of it were bitter. My
theory is that the bitterness came from the part close to the peel, any idea?
You can help me improve my pie!
Your theory is correct. There is some bitterness near the
skin, with the skin itself being extremely bitter. The other source might be
the pawpaw itself—some wild fruits are bitter, while others are as sweet and
luscious as any fruit you might find in the grocery store.
Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit at Chelsea Green Publishing