Now that's some strange looking fruit, eh? It's a Paw Paw – the largest native to America tree fruit and it's one of the very few native to America fruits. They grow here in PA and apparently are fairly popular in SE Ohio (Pawpaw Festival). Well, we have them at the Fair Food Farmstand for $6.50/lbs. Fear not the price though as they're not too huge; a buck will get you a smallish one to try out.
Now the daunting task of picking out a ripe one. Over the year and change I've been working at the Farmstand has schooled me pretty well on picking some ripe fruit. I was decent beforehand, but now I can ID a ripe [fill in the blank] with the best of them. A truly ripe paw paw looks and feels offensively ripe. Like past how ripe you want a banana to be for banana bread (i.e. too soft and gushy for just plain eating). In the photo above, we have an almost ripe, brown paw paw at top and a green paw paw at bottom. Some people prefer the harder green paw paw, but some people also think a well done burger is acceptable fare 
. The one pictured at top was squishy, but not about-to-burst ready.
So what does it taste like? It's somewhere between a banana and a mango. Yep, you read that right. Banana-mango. If you've ever ordered up a banana-mango smoothie at a smoothie stand, you just might love yourself a paw paw.
(Annoyingly, I've changed the position of the un/ripe paw paws from the first photo, sorry) How do you eat one of these suckers? Well, you can bit into one I guess, but I've split them open, lenghtwise and dug in with a spoon. On to specific taste… The unripe one first: it's got a fruity custard texture which goes well with one name for the paw paw: custard apple. It's not stringy inside, but not fully creamy. The seed pods, which are roughly as tall as pennies, but tapered and not as wide, are chewy – don't eat them, I was just curious. To me, the paw paw has more of a mild papaya than mango with a hint of banana. Closer to the skin side of the meat, the meat is a little chunkier and not as creamy as at the center.
The ripe one: Much more fragrant and much creamier meat with almost no harder chunks to be found inside. When scraping the meat from the inside of the skin, you get a hints of a toasted flavor which I really liked.
I've read that one can make chilled desserts from paw paw and that good old GW's favorite dessert was chilled paw paw. They're a strange fruit and well worth a try if you don't mind the texture – I know lots of people who have issues with oddly textured foods. The Farmstand received a shipment of paw paws from Green Meadow Farms in Gap, PA today. I haven't seen them yet, but I just called in and was told they were pretty large.
One volunteer from last year, whose family is from Jamaica, brought some home to her mother to try. She said her mom said the American paw paw was quite different from the Jamaican variety so if you've had the Jamaican one while island hopping in the Caribbean, these are different.
And on another note, tomorrow, Friday October 2nd, is the Grand Opening of the new Fair Food Farmstand on the 12th St side of RTM. Speakers/guests include Fair Food Executive Director Ann Karlen (that's my boss of bosses), RTM GM Paul Steinke, City Councilman Frank DiCicco, author and professor of all things food Marion Nestle, and some of the farmers who make our lives better by farming right: the Brendle family of Green Meadow Farm, Paul Tsakos of Overbrook Herb Farm, Maryanne Thompson of Paradise Hill Farm, and James DeMarsh, General Manager of Common Market Philadelphia. I'm told there will be some prizes and gifts (no idea what) so come on by between 10.30a – 11.30a if you're in the area.
Fair Food Farmstand
M – Sat: 8a – 6p
Su: 9a – 5p
215.627.2029
Reading Terminal Market
12th & Arch Sts
