National Pawpaw Day: Here's what to know about Ohio's native fruit

With fall quickly approaching on Sept. 22, one might think of hitting up an apple orchard or sipping seasonal specialties like pumpkin spice lattes. But for Ohioans, fall also means pawpaw season is here!

Thursday marks National Pawpaw Day, a celebration of the Buckeye State's native fruit. The small green fruit is native to the eastern U.S. and has been in the Ohio River Valley region for more than 30,000 years. Today, there are still wild pawpaw trees all over Ohio, usually found by rivers and in the shade.

National Papaw Day was created in 2019 by Kentucky State University to celebrate and raises awareness of the fruit, according to National Today.

Known as America's forgotten fruit, the Iroquois tribe made small cakes and fruit jerky from it, and other groups like the Osage and Algonquin also included pawpaws in their food supplies.

Thomas Jefferson ate pawpaws at his home in Virginia, and when he was minister to France in the late 1700s, he shipped seeds to his friends in the country, reported National Public Radio. When the explorers Lewis and Clark were on an expedition in 1806, they ate pawpaws when their food supply was low.

David Parrott, a forester with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said pawpaws have an underground following because they're not a commercial fruit you can buy in the grocery store. But events like the annual Ohio Pawpaw Festival, which this year takes place from Friday through Sunday in Athens County, are making the fruit more well known.

"It's a lot like mushroom hunters. There's a lot of mushrooms that you can only either grow on your own or find in the forest; you can't really buy them commercially, and I think pawpaws fall in that same realm," Parrott said.

For those unfamiliar with the pawpaw, here are more facts about the green fruit.

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What is a pawpaw?

Pawpaws are the largest edible native fruit in North America, Parrott said.

The fruit is indigenous to 26 states in the U.S. It extends from northern Florida to southern Ontario and as far west as eastern Nebraska, according to Kentucky State University's Pawpaw Research Project, the only full-time pawpaw research program in the world.

Pawpaws are also sometimes known as the Kentucky banana or the hillbilly mango.

What does a pawpaw taste like?

The kidney-shaped fruit is green with a creamy, avocado-like texture that tastes a bit like mango, pineapple and banana.

Besides being eaten by itself, the fruit can be an ingredient in ice cream, bread, pudding and even beer, Parrott said.

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How to eat pawpaws

Cut the fruit in half with a knife, and avoid cutting the hard seeds inside — work around them. Scoop out the fruit with a spoon and spit out the seeds. You can also use a potato peeler for the skin.

Pawpaws begin to blacken just three days after they're picked, so if you cannot eat them quick enough, freeze the pulp for later use.

Where to find pawpaws

Wild pawpaws can be find in state parks, the woods and near bodies of water, Parrott said.

"In Columbus or really anywhere in most of Ohio, you usually find them in the understory, like the lower parts near streams ... lakes and creeks and in the floodplains."

The pawpaw season is short, and typically last only eight weeks. In Ohio, pawpaws usually ripen in late August and as late as October, while the fruits in the Deep South are ready a few months earlier, late July or early August.

Parrott said pawpaws don't usually get ripe until late fall, changing from green to yellow to brown.

"The way to know that they're ripe is to squeeze on them," he said. "If they're really hard, they're not ripe yet; whereas, the mushier they are, the more ripe they get.

"If you shake the tree and they fall out, that's usually a good sign that they're getting close to being ripe."

They're not typically found in grocery stores because of the fruit's short shelf life.

When is Ohio's pawpaw festival?

Now in its 24th year, the Ohio Pawpaw Festival will take place Friday through Sunday at Lake Snowden in Albany, which is in Athens County. The weekend event will feature presentations, a pawpaw cook-off, pawpaw-eating contest, pawpaw artwork, live music and pawpaw competitions.

Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Emily DeLetter contributed to this story.

mwalker@dispatch.com

@micah_walker701

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Here's what to know about Ohio's native fruit for National Pawpaw Day