Evidently, there is a wild pawpaw tree in the northern climes that produces a fruit that looks much like a young, immature papaya, yet tastes like a mature one: It appears to be the latest thing in that freakish world of culinary one-up-manship inhabited by persons who would like to consider themselves food aficionados.
Article 1
Pawpaw trees, the largest edible fruit trees native to North America, produce greenish-blackish fruit, usually three to six inches long. The flesh is pale to bright yellow and contains a network of glossy, dark brown seeds. A pawpaw’s flavor is sunny, electric, and downright tropical: a riot of mango-banana-citrus that’s incongruous with its temperate, deciduous forest origins. They also have a subtle kick of a yeasty, floral aftertaste a bit like unfiltered wheat beer. “The flavor of pawpaws is forceful and distinct,” writes culinary historian Mark F. Sohn diplomatically in his encyclopedic book, Appalachian Home Cooking.
The outside color and size sound to me like unripened, green papaya. The golden flesh, black seeds and tropical flavor sound precisely like my mature, golden papaya. Notice that they describe it coming from a tree, not a bush or any kind of ground cover. According to the above author, the taxonomic name of the fruit they are describing is Asimina parviflora. Here’s a picture of the fruit in the article
from which the above description—using only the term pawpaw—comes from. It’s probably written by some Yankee whippersnapper attempting to break into culinary writing. Bear with me.
Article 2
The papaya I know, which is also called pawpaw in some of the more remote, undeveloped parts of the world where there is, evidently, no culinary media coverage such as Florida, is the Carica papaya. It is, apparently, also called pawpaw by the Aussies, (as well as at least some Florida Crackers) according to this article. Notice the author begins the article with the term “Papaya/pawpaw,” and then continues to use the two terms interchangeably throughout. Here is a picture of the fruit these authors are talking about, the Carica papaya. The picture depicts young, green papaya/pawpaws on a single-stemmed tree (with a very long tap-root, like that described in article 1.)
The words papaya and pawpaw are also used interchangeably when describing Carica papaya in Article 3 and Article 4
There are a plethora of articles on the net describing fruit known exclusively as pawpaws, like in article 1. This what I think. As far as I know, Carica papaya, the Floridian pawpaw I know, doesn’t grow north of Georgia. The paw described by my friends here at Fluther and in Article 1 and a shitload of articles now found on the net, the Asimina parviflora, is another pawpaw of a different color. It has been long ignored until now, and is found wild as far south as Georgia, throughout Appalachia and as far north as Canada. There are also bushes, or shrub-like trees, found in the same climes and as far south as Key West known taxonomically as Asimina Obovata (Bigflower Pawpaw), Asimina Parviflora (Smallflower Pawpaw), Asimina Pygmaea (Dwarf Pawpaw), Asimina Incana (Wooly Pawpaw), Asimina Angustifolia (Slimleaf Pawpaw), Asimina Reticulata (Netted Pawpaw), Asimina Tetramera (Four Petaled Pawpaw), Asimina Triloba (Common Pawpaw). All pawpaws.
As to my sources in Articles 2–4, I personally think Dr. Hulda Clark, along with the others who claim a cancer cure are out of their fucking minds, but she does use the terms Pawpaw/papaya interchangeably, as do the Middle Path Natural Health people in Article 2 who also provide a photo of what is definitely one bisected mature golden papaya, as well as The Treatment for Cancer Club people, who also were nice enough to provide a picture of what is most assuredly young, green papaya fruit dangling at the top of a papaya tree.. So, what this proves is that, although the company may not be very rational, I and others are not alone in using the terms interchangeably, and like the old man in my first post, not entirely wrong either.
I think, in this case, the world is confused by the physical similarities of the fruit, despite the taxonomy and the loose colloquial term, “pawpaw”. I’m satisfied now that I’m not losing my mind. And that really is what this is about. It’s about a Fucking bad day.
