The pawpaw, and in this case I mean Asimina triloba, not the other 10 species of Asimina, is North America's largest native fruit. It is the northern most member of a family of tropical plants. The pawpaw is now in commercial cultivation, and many improved hybrids exist. Fruit from wild trees can have variable taste depending on the tree (and by tree, I mean all the many trees that come from the same rootstock, spread by runners/vegetative growth). The pawpaw fruit is exceedingly fragile; when ripe it is very soft and does not transport well (and they will not ripen up if picked unripe). You will not find them at your local grocery store, but may find some at a local farmer's market. The best way to have pawpaws is to grow them yourself. The flavor of pawpaws is often described as a combination of banana with mango and pineapple overtones.
I lucked out, I grew my pawpaws from seed collected from wild plants-talk about a wild card! Even if you taste the fruit, the flower was most likely pollinated by a genetically different tree, and you don't know what you might get from that cross. Pawpaws are seldom self fertile, as the female and male parts of the flower come out at different times. I hand pollinate mine with male flowers collected locally.
An added bonus of growing pawpaws is that they are the host plant for the larva of the zebra swallowtail butterfly!
The top photo shows the fruit, pulp, and the large seeds (do no eat the seeds or skin, they can make you sick, And, like everything, some people are allergic to pawpaws). The second photo is of pawpaw pudding, a traditional recipe, sort of a dense cake. Some people claim that cooked pawpaw can cause digestive upset, but it never has for me, nor can I find good evidence for that claim.
For Virginia growers, Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA offers several named varieties of pawpaws.
