Grab Life by the Pawpaws

Grab Life By the PawPaws

 

 

Pawpaws, a relative of other such wackily named plants as the sweetsop, soursop, cherimoya and ylang-ylang (pronounced EE-lang), arrive to adulthood in the Appalachian area, which apparently is enough of a reason to have a festival dedicated to them.

The 11th Annual Pawpaw Festival on September 19, located on beautiful Lake Snowden in Albany, Ohio, was a typical Appalachian romp complete with music, gyros, medieval weaponry and, of course, the atypical pawpaw, otherwise known as the poor man’s banana. Growers of the pawpaw aggregate every year to celebrate this unique delectable.

The pawpaw is a fruit that grows only in the temperate woodlands of the eastern United States. They often grow to 3-6 inches in length and weigh roughly 5-16 ounces. They have a creamy yellow center as well as multiple large seeds. The closest taste that can be compared to a pawpaw is the Indian mango.

Pawpaws are also extremely rare. They are not grown commercially because of their short shelf lives. Lance Beard, a bearded gentleman, informed many people about the process of growing this year’s pawpaws. He explained that this season included both a dry spell and a wet spell resulting in many of the pawpaws hardening and cracking on the outer shell of the fruits.

Some people have found ways to preserve them by crafting pawpaws into other longer-lasting foods. Integration Acres Pawpaw Products specializes in making a multitude of other pawpaw goods such as pawpaw crackers and pawpaw jelly. Employee Meghan Amelia Featheringham explained that, in order to make the jelly, they have to extract the pulp and let it ferment for a couple of weeks.

Other ingenious and popular ways of preserving pawpaws include making pawpaw beer and soda. Eric Hedin, owner of the Do-It-Yourself Shop in Athens, specializes in the making of pawpaw soda. He makes three flavors: Pawpaw Sugar, Pawpaw Splenda and Pawpaw Honey. He described the process as churning water with carbon dioxide then adding pawpaws with liquefied honey. Hedin eagerly gave his product out for free during this year’s Pawpaw Festival.

The 2009 festival had many other activities and events, such as fencing, “The Best Pawpaw,” a pawpaw cook off and the ever-popular pawpaw eating contest. The pawpaw eating contest drew a huge crowd. It consisted of 9 contestants from ages 10 to 40 and from Atlanta, Georgia to Cincinnati, Ohio. The objective of the contest was to scrape clean 20 pawpaw seeds as fast as possible while keeping hands held behind the back. The winner was Jim Laske, a native of Akron, Ohio.

Pawpaws have recently been named as Ohio’s native state fruit.

Veteran pawpaw eaters are eager to dish out some advice: “Don’t eat the seeds or the skin, or your toilet will be your best friend for a long time.”