Way Down Yonder in the Pawpaw Patch

Where oh where is dear little Suzie?

Where oh where is dear little Suzie?

Where oh where is dear little Suzie?

Way down yonder in the paw paw patch

I remember this song from childhood, probably because Suzie was my name and I liked being 'dear' and 'little'. Still, I never wondered what a pawpaw patch was and what I was doing way down yonder. Maybe I assumed it was an imaginary place like Hona Lee, home of Puff the Magic Dragon. It turns out paw paws are real and I now have one of my own.

Last month, my son received a paw paw tree for his 30th birthday. The friend who gave him the tree is a horticulturalist, but it was still an odd gift since my son doesn't have a place to plant it. Long story short, my husband and I now have a new papaw tree in our backyard.

I've never tasted a pawpaw, but I look forward to it. Who knows if our new tree will produce

something edible? It's supposed to take a couple of years for the tree to produce mature fruit. The fruit is about 3-6 inches long and greenish-black in color. The inside is custard-like, white with large black seeds. It tastes like a combination of banana, mango, and citrus and is allegedly delicious.

I was fascinated to learn that the pawpaw is the largest and only tropical fruit native to the U.S. So why don't we regularly eat paw paws in addition to apples, bananas, mangoes, and oranges? Because they don't keep well. They only last for a couple of days after ripening and don't refrigerate well. It's impractical to get them to the grocery store in time for them to be purchased and eaten.

Old World Fruit and New World Fruit

As I've mentioned before, I'm fascinated with the Columbian exchange. When I first learned that potatoes aren't native to Ireland and tomatoes aren't native to Italy, my mind was blown. Weirdly, very few fruits are native to North America. We don't have native apples or oranges or bananas or even melons. Other than pawpaws, most American fruits are berries: blueberries, strawberries, and cranberries. I always thought it was weird that there aren't good words in Spanish for berries, but when I went to Colombia I encountered many fruits without an English translation.

Photo credit: Depositphotos

As an exchange student in Bogotá, I was introduced to dozens of fruits I'd never heard of and didn't know the names of in English: maracuyá, tomate de árbol, curuba, guanábana, lulo, cherimoya, mamoncillo, zapote, feijoa, and more. I mostly experienced them in juice form: jugo de curuba was my favorite. It was strange to eat things whose names I did not know but I was very grateful for all the choices.

I didn't love most Colombian food. It's pretty bland. In case you're wondering, it bears no resemblance to Mexican food whatsoever. (People tend to think that all Spanish-speaking countries eat Mexican food.) Most meals consisted of a piece of meat accompanied by potatoes, rice, and yucca. I don't recall seeing a green vegetable in the five months I lived there. I love carbs, but even I have my limits. One starch per meal is just fine with me.

As far as the meat goes, it tasted okay but seeing dirty men unload unwrapped slabs of meat from the back of a dirty truck did not increase my appetite. Nor did the giant cow's tongue my host family served me the day I arrived. It was probably meant to be a special treat, but I get nauseated thinking about it even now. I did like ajiaco, a chicken stew with potatoes, capers, and small pieces of corn on the cob.

I also first encountered cilantro in Colombia, which to me tasted like dust. Lots of people think it tastes like soap, but 'dust' was the label I mentally gave it. I hated it in Colombia, but have developed a taste for it over the last decades. I've heard that your genes determine whether or not you like cilantro, so I'm not sure how I changed my opinion. I lost most of my sense of smell after a bad virus twenty-some years ago, so maybe that's a factor.

Just Say No Fruit

One fruit that has gotten a lot of press in recent years is the durian, a spiky fruit from Southeast Asia. If being covered in spikes isn't enough to convey "don't eat me," the smell of the durian is so vile that the fruit is banned in many public places. Anthony Bourdain warned that if you try it, “your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” Reader's Digest reports researchers identified odor compounds that include "honey, roasted onion, sulfur, caramel, soup seasoning, rotten egg, rotten cabbage, skunk and fruit." Yum.

They say durian doesn't taste as bad as it smells. It's used in everything from soup to ice cream. My big question is why would anyone take a ball of spikes that smells like a corpse and put it in their mouth? It turns out that durians are extremely nutritious. They contain more nutrients than other fruits. It's full of fiber, vitamins, and healthy plant compounds. Unfortunately, this confirms my bias that nutritious food tastes bad.

Low-hanging Fruit

If you're not able to travel to exotic lands, you can turn your visit to the grocery store into an adventure. Pick out the strangest thing you can find that you've never tasted. Take it home, Google it, and then give it a try. Once you've sampled a few unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, try your hand at a full-fledged recipe from a distant land. With our easy access to international products and recipes, you can explore the world from your own kitchen. You can get out of your comfort zone from the comfort of your home.

I look forward to the day when my pawpaws are ready to sample. I've bookmarked a few recipes that look intriguing. On the other hand, I think I'll keep my distance from durians.