Why don't grocery stores stock pawpaw fruit?
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I started growing them in 2018, and even though that's not that long ago, the best cultivars you could get back then were complete garbage compared with what you can get today.
KSU Chappell, KSU Atwood, Wabash, Shenandoah, Susquehanna, Potomac
If you're on the east coast and willing to drive to New Jersey, then I'd recommend ordering from Charlie West: https://sites.google.com/view/westfarm
If not, then Peaceful Heritage is very reputable, the main problem with them is that their grafted pawpaws only go on sale one day per year and are completely sold out in 20 minutes.
If you can't get from them, then your options are OneGreenWorld, StarkBros, and the other usual suspects.
Logees also sells Shenandoah and Susquehanna as a set for super cheap and they typically have a lot of inventory in the spring, so I'd recommend picking up those cultivars there and getting them shipped.
Also, Cliff England no longer ships trees, but still sells to customers that are willing to drive to KY: http://nuttrees.net/
Just don't get NC-1, Mango, Rappahannock, Prolific, Overleese, Wells, or PA Gold.
Don't get me wrong, if you get one of those when they're perfectly ripe then it may well still be a completely life changing experience. But you can also do better, and given then you're going to have them for the next 25 years, it's worth doing the extra work to get the absolute best cultivars you can rather than just buying the first ones that are in stock, even if it takes an extra year to get started.
I had never heard of the American pawpaw before and my initial reaction was that it was reasonably commonly available.
Mamão are the same as sapotes probably, the family of bubble gum tree. Sapotes or zapotes are also said to be very good fruits. They share the 'icecream' texture with pawpaw.
https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs....
The good news is that there is only one recorded case in history of someone who is suspected to have gotten PSP from eating pawpaws, a grower in New Jersey. The acetoenins in pawpaws have a fairly low bioavalability, so it's probably only a significant risk if you are 1) eating large quantities 2) doing something to increase the bioavailability of the acetogenins, e.g. cooking them with fat or maybe mixing them with alcohol.
If you eat moderate quantities out of hand, then most likely you are just reducing your cancer and diabetes risk, without taking on any increased risk of PSP. And since cancer and diabetes kill hundreds of times more people than PSP, overall eating them out of hand is almost certainly a net positive for your health -- especially when you compare them with the health effects of ice cream or whatever other dessert you'd have otherwise have been eating in their place.
That said, the cultivars that are specifically known to be low in acetogenins are: Sunflower, Wabash, Potomac, Zimmerman, Wells, Mango, Shenandoah.
Of these, the ones that are actually good are Wabash, Shenandoah, Sunflower, and Potomac. So if you just want to grow cultivars low in acetogenins, grow at least two of those four.
And if you haven't already seen it, here are Neal Peterson's recommendations for safe consumption:
https://www.petersonpawpaws.com/are-pawpaws-safe/
His recommendations are notable mainly because he's the one who kickstarted the pawpaw renaissance and released many of the most popular (and best) cultivars on the market today.
Duly noted lol
My wife hates the scent of the thing though.
Plants have to fight off bacteria after all.
Taking notes carefully, thanks
> the ones that are actually good are Wabash, Shenandoah, Sunflower, and Potomac
Well's delight is a four of five stars so, over average. Shenandoah that tastes like a banana is maybe a 4.5. Sunflower (said to have also a bland banana taste) could be maybe a 3.5.
but it depends a lot of the ripeness, the number of fruits in the tree (Prolific by comparison is a 'one star over five', but... lots of fruits) and the personal taste. Ripeness is a trait that is tricky to realize. As a rule of thumb, if it has black spots is overripe.
The fruit can taste like a mix of caramel, vanille, bubblegum, pineapple, banana and poison (if overripe or wild variety). More or less depending on the variety.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dinitrophenol [2] https://portlandpress.com/biochemj/article-abstract/111/4/43...?
So basically, a natural DNP?
States that almost all plant foods contain some toxins. A solution he provides is that we should always eat a variety of plant foods, i.e change plant food almost every meal.
That way, your body never accumulates any single toxin in large or dangerous quantities.
Sure I know of anti-nutrients, but reading more about this guy, seems like its just a rando's opinion. I'll take the rat studies please.
I did not say that you should go out & proactively eat cancerous foods.
The book is a very practical book, my only regret is not having bought it earlier.
You should follow the strategy in consuming a variety of plant foods because.
a) It is practically impossible to know the toxins in all plants and thus avoid them proactively.
b) Like I said, almost all plant foods contain some toxins.
So either;
- you starve,
- you build up unhealthy toxins by eating the same plant foods daily
- or you can have many toxins at very (harmless) low levels. By constantly switching your plant food consumption.
DeVany's books is really good. If you like "rat studies" you will definitely like it.
If you want to avoid all toxins ever, you'll have to avoid... basically all food. Oxalic acid, cyanogenic glycosides, etc. are just freaking everywhere. Plants make defense compounds; we're able to handle small amounts of them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120103091953/http://arthurdeva...
It came with a more bland, less complex flavor (probably). Susquehanna has a high level of acetogenins but it ranks often among the top cultivars on flavor. Overleese also has a high acetogenin level
Not my thing. The ones I had fresh were too weird tasting for me. I did like some of the secondary products like beer or other things made from them, but the fruit themselves, nah.
If they can get them to where other people that like them get to enjoy them though, that's cool.
But, what I didn't like was it was overwhelmingly like the worst parts of the flavor of banana, amplified. Maybe it was the ones that I tried and there are other varieties, but that overwhelming banana flavor was what I disliked. Stronger than your regular bananas.
I also didn't like them, but now I can't wait for them to show up (there are seasonal in the supermarkets here).
The papaya, whilst also sometimes being called a pawpaw, has been available commercially for some time in the US, and is not what is being referred to here.
like yams and sweet potatoes
It's the opposite of the scone situation; my wife pronounces that "scone"... whereas I always pronounced it "scone". Potato/Potato I guess. :P
The real problem is the dull aspect (like a greyish-green potato) and short shelf life of paw paw.
Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZAk1a0dqiM
> [...] Rowe, the farmers' market vendor, said he's constantly selling out of pawpaws.
He is very clearly selling too cheaply?
The sort of pricing and supply irregularities that lead to queues and scalpers and hype are frequently rational for the seller, precisely because of the irrationality of buyers.
They’re highly perishable, available in small quantities and wildly seasonal. The seller likely needs to drive motivated buyers to their cart, fast and predictably, to make the foraging worthwhile. That unfortunately means pricing in a shortage. This is why the scientists are trying to breed a version that is less perishable, producible in larger quantities or growable more predictably.
And there is apparently demand for them, which overall means they should indeed be relatively expensive.
If sellers need to "drive motivated buyers to their carts" by selling cheap for such a troublesome product then in a developed country they will probably just not sell it because it isn't worthwhile.
And
> They’re highly perishable, available in small quantities and wildly seasonal.
Hence my previous comment, so I don't understand yours...
Did the farmer bring 5? 15? 5 bushels? Selling your stock in an hour may be an optimal strategy.
Some marketing strategies have people underpricing, even if in limited supply, so that demand will accrue.
There is more to pricing than min/max theory.
(edit: you could obviously think of it as a strategy that maximizes some other utility function in which profit is just one parameter)
Nope. A seller can choose to sell below the market price, thereby inducing a shortage. In this case, it’s unclear the seller could predictably clear this perishable stock at a higher price.
Market versus negotiated price. The market price is not controlled by a non-monopoly seller or non-monopsony buyer. That doesn’t preclude someone being convinced, in exchange for a bulk order, long-term commitment (formally or informally), out of sympathy, or a bribe or because a participant is misinformed or an idiot, to sell off market at a different negotiated price.
Taking into account cost of selling (their time) may be a factor.
I would prefer to sell for 1000$ in 1 hour over selling for 1100$ over 10 hours.
assuming production and transport costs at 500$, and 0% taxes it is leaving with 400$ vs 480$ profit, making it a clearly good idea if you value your time at more than 8.89$/h. And it does not take into account promotion/building consumer loyalty.
(obviously real world has many more factors, like selling also other products which may limit time saving and add chance for crossselling stuff)
It may come as a shock to you, but I'm not a SV startup guy, and my own employment is certainly not income-maximised.
Source, lived in VA for a decade, hunting for wild pawpaws and growing my own trees. Before we moved out of the state we had a pawpaw "collection" of about fifty (ten we owned, approx forty we found in the national forest and harvested yearly).
Unfortunately, their popularity in the last few years has caused them to be over harvested by people selling them. Additionally, they taste the very best right after falling to the ground naturally but lots of folks keep trying to knock them or shake or climb the trees way to early in the season causing a lot of damage to the trees.
To find them in the city, put DC into this site and filter for Pawpaw: https://fallingfruit.org/
Swampy VA, of which NoVA is a part, is their native habitat and it's no surprise they do well there even with mixed sun.
But yeah, they don't store well either. I've kept them in my refrigerator, but they don't store that long there, unlike apples for instance. Bananas don't store well either, but they're really, really easy to eat, unlike pawpaws.
I enjoyed picking and eating them when I lived in a place with them: it's fun being able to eat fruit that you picked yourself out in the woods. But if it were sold in stores, I doubt I'd buy it very often.
Food "prevalence" in general is mysterious to me. It seems to me there are a lot of foods that could be more widespread but aren't for historical or quirky reasons. Pawpaws seem to be one of many similar examples.
They are very pretty when they flower, though.
Still waiting for my lazy trees to do anything. I culture four varieties and they are notoriously unable to pollinate themselves without a second tree of other variety close. Last time it was... almost, but slugs.
Annonaceae. Family of the Cherimoya.
Comprises also the Ylang-Ylang (fragrance) and also a lot of other tropical fruits. Most of them recognizable easily by having a skin sculpted with "scaly" marks, or thorns like a pineapple: Sugar apple, soursop, sweetsop, Atemoya, also a genus in temperate areas, Asimina.
- Asimina genus: Comprises several US natives of fruit trees. Asimina triloba (Paw paw), is the most famous and looks just like a smooth potato. no scales here.
Caricaceae. Family of the Papaya. Trees with leaves arranged around a soft trunk like a palm, fruits with soft skin, shaped like a fig or a pumpkin. Comprises:
- Carica (Papaya/PawPaw, babaco) tropical, huge fruits
- Vasconcellea (Mountain papaya, banano de monte) more hard, small fruits
Compare, for example, the skin and cross section in photos.
Also compare ranges: chirimoya is tropical, pawpaw is temperate.
Cherimoya (and Atemoya, etc) are often placed among the royalty of fruits. If they are ripe, they are really good. Overripe... not so much. Develop an acrid aftertaste that is a clear warning.
Definitely recommend trying one if you get the chance.
> This article is about the common pawpaw of eastern North America. For the unrelated tropical papaya fruit often called 'papaw' or 'pawpaw', see Carica papaya.
> This article is about the papaya. Not to be confused with the South American Mountain papaya or the Eastern North American "pawpaw".
....
Huh, TIL! I thought they were the same thing.
DIY guava rum is pretty good btw. literally guava (or paste), vanilla bean, and the cheapest rum you can get.
-- perishable -- incredibly easily bruised, so hard to pack and ship -- wildly varying sizes -- hard to prepare -- big seeds -- very short season
Definitely worth trying though.
There are a lot of awesome tropical fruits that nobody knows out of its distribution area (Some of us would culture it furiously otherwise, LOL)
It would seem you probably don't see these in Germany.
prbly higher % HN users though
The country is just implicit by the subject.
Betteridge's law of headlines fails unequivocally here!
The kind of thing that makes you want to read the Communist Manifesto furiously to cleanse your eyes of all this pretense sophistication and frivolity.
Probably not going to find them in many chains outside of SEO, more likely in boutique markets.
The PawPaw beer can be pretty good.