Pondering pawpaws

PAW PAW, Ill.--John Vukmirovich started recording a treatise on pawpaws on my phone as we barreled toward I-88, headed west to the inaugural Pawpaw Festival. My voice text translated his Chicagoese rather hilariously. Though, his ramblings veering into Ava Gardner, Ernest Hemingway, Moby Dick and hillbillies (not an elegy) might've been a factor.

It set the tone for a visit to what I think it's the first event in Illinois celebrating the quirky indigenous pear-shaped fruit, largest in North America.

Pawpaws have appeal. Even well before opening, we had to park a couple blocks away. We saw licenses from Iowa and Wisconsin.

With Vukmirovich, pawpaws are an obsession. He's planted pawpaws around the Chicago area. When I lined up for a tasting, he disappeared.

Fittingly, Al and Sandy Roloff of Sycamore worked the tasting table. They planted wild plants in 1998 they bought from Possibility Place, the native plants mecca in Monee. They said one tree gave up 340 fruits this year, totaling 540 from five.

Behind them was James Brown of Wheaton selling seedlings he had grown. He started his journey by foraging for pawpaws last year, then saving the seeds.

"Key is patience," he said. "One plant only came up in July. But it is addicting."

Austin Cliffe, an award-winning grower from DeKalb, gave this advice later on growing pawpaws from seed. Keep the seeds moist and in the refrigerator until you start growing them. Once big enough to plant, wait until after the last frost. In the early years, make sure to mulch and shade well to keep them from drying out.

Mind the Chicago Botanic Garden description, "In its native habitat, pawpaw is an understory tree found growing along the edge of floodplain forests, wooded slopes, along streams, in ravines and sometimes in drier upland woods."

To really delve into pawpaws, check Cliffe's YouTube channel (youtube.com/@cremedementia), his video from the festival is posted below.

Sue Stephens, an award-winning grower and wife of Cliffe, introduced the event beside artfully stacked straw bales on the park stage, "We are making history today."

Nearby Rich and Roseann Para worked the Lions Club's information table and sold commemorative T-shirts. They have 40-50 trees.

"It is more than a patch, more of a grove," Roseann said.

They started their pawpaws from ones growing in paper pots, bought in Michigan. Paper pots made it easier to transplant. They have a good setting by a ravine where the trees can be understory.

Pawpaws are not self-pollinating, you need at least two plants. They are pollinated by flies, beetles and butterflies, drawn to the odor of the small flowers, which Cliffe described as "slightly fetid" or carrion-like.

"Some have dragged roadkill into groves to attract flies," he noted.

Stephens announced pawpaw trivia (quite popular with that crowd). There was frozen pulp tastings, kids activities and food trucks.

After Vukmirovich and I had scoped the event, we walked a self-guided hour-plus tour from a map of nine homes by the Paw Paw Lions Club. It had delights.

After talking with Dave Sharp and Tracy Militell, we left with tomatoes, including a big bawdy Cherokee Purple heirloom. John and Stephanie Prentice had a swing situated under pawpaws, consistently the highest producers in town. Kevin and Toni Larimore had a bounty of fruit still hanging on their pawpaws.

Eating is the thing about pawpaws.

On eating, Cliffe said don't eat the seeds or skin. Heating the pulp will lose flavor and "don't ever dry them. Fruit leather tastes good, but it is not worth the gastronomic distress."

Pawpaws are good in cold dishes such as cheesecake and ice cream.

Vukmirovich breaks pawpaws into three zones/flavors: white flesh of the northern Michigan/New York (not as flavorful); yellow flesh of northern/central Illinois and Indiana ("fantastic"); and orange flesh of southern Illinois and Indiana ("scrumptious").

He rates eating on ripeness of 0-5. On 0, he said, "Make sure you have someone who can take you to an ER, it is not funny." At stage 3, 3.5 to 4 is when the flesh starts to get pudding like.

To me, best to eat them like a wild custard, where you spoon from half a pawpaw, avoiding the seeds.

The Chicago Botanic Garden description waxes poetic: ". . . almost indescribable flavor—a mix of banana, apple and hints of mango, vanilla and citrus. Some of the fruit's common names hint at how delicious it tastes: Indiana banana, custard banana and American papaw."

Back at the park, all the fruit and most seedlings were sold by early afternoon.

It was time.

Last Sunday, I ate the ripest pawpaw. It had notes of banana and vanilla. The next four mornings I ate the next ripest.