Eat Your Words
Pawpaw: America's Forgotten Fruit
The largest edible fruit native to the United States tastes like a cross between a banana and a mango... any guesses? This week on Eat Your Words, host Cathy Erway is on the line with Andrew Moore discussing the pawpaw. Author of "Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit," Andrew explains that the fruit actually grows wild in twenty-six states, gracing Eastern forests each fall with sweet-smelling, tropical-flavored abundance. Historically, it fed and sustained Native Americans and European explorers, presidents, and enslaved African Americans, inspiring folk songs, poetry, and scores of place names from Georgia to Illinois. Its trees are an organic grower’s dream, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to thrive, and containing compounds that are among the most potent anticancer agents yet discovered. So why have so few people heard of the pawpaw, much less tasted one? Tune in as Cathy and Andrew unpack the facts and more!
"There's this fruit out there that we can use that is delicious that has a good story, so they brew pawpaw beers and wine and they put neat labels on the bottle. It's a great topic." [12:45]
"When you cut the fruit open, it has this bright yellow or orange pulp which is often unexpected... It has this texture that is custard like." [18:30]
--Andrew Moore on Eat Your Words