Pickin’ up pawpaws: Meet the midwestern 'tropical' fruit that thrives in southeast Nebraska
— I've promised not to tell you where exactly I am.
That's how protective hunters of this elusive fruit can be.
All you really need to know, all you can know, is that I had to duck under branches and high-step through grass and vines to get to this sunken patch of trees in this state park near Brownville.
I give the ground a scan — my eyes catch seeds strewn in the dirt, pulverized browning peels, clues that tell me raccoons, possums or deer beat me here.
Then, I look up and spot what I came here for.
Behold, the pawpaw.
The oblong pale green fruit hangs high up above me, shrouded in a lush canopy of big droopy leaves.
I give the tree's thin trunk a gentle shake — not too hard, you don't want a pawpaw to fall to the ground if it's not ready.
Two fruits, smooth and green with a brush of yellow and flecks of brown, plunk onto the ground.
The prairie banana, the hillbilly mango, the Husker banana — the pawpaw goes by many names. And while it looks and tastes like it should be growing in the tropics, it's actually the largest fruit native to North America. Its native habitat extends from the East Coast into Kansas, as far north as Michigan and down into Louisiana.
And along the banks of the Missouri River, the pawpaw found fertile land to flourish in the southeast corner of Nebraska, where I find myself craning my neck up at the fruits I can't stop talking about.
Right now, we're in the midst of pawpaw season — the fleeting window of time in September and October when ripe pawpaws start to fall from trees. And every year, the pawpaw's most ardent fans find ways to get their hands on the beloved fruit, whether it's by foraging, sourcing them from someone with a tree or sometimes even growing their own.
"It is kind of like a certain horticultural fever that a person can get," said Brad Kindler, sustainable landscape specialist with the Nebraska Forest Service. "They're delicious, they're exotic, they're beautiful."
My own horticultural pawpaw fever started as an accident. On a hike through Indian Cave last year, a friend stepped on one of the bulbous fruits scattered along the trail. Golden goop squished out from under her hiking boot.
Later, we realized we'd been hiking under cover of pawpaw trees, and that we could have eaten the fruits that littered the ground.
I left that camping trip with a mission: to forage and taste a pawpaw. For journalism, of course.
The pawpaw has a long history in America. Thomas Jefferson was so enchanted that he grew them at Monticello and shipped seeds to friends in France. George Washington was said to have preferred them cold for dessert. Lewis and Clark ate them for days when supplies ran low. Native American tribes would eat the fruit, then use the leaves for their medicinal anti-inflammatory properties and the bark to make rope and baskets.
The pawpaw isn't pollinated by bees, but by flies — its small red flowers are meant to mimic meat. Its skin and large seeds are toxic, but the inside is like a custard you can scoop out with a spoon.
Today, you won't find pawpaws in stores. It's a fragile fruit that bruises easily and goes bad in a matter of days. Growers and researchers are trying to "domesticate" the pawpaw to have a longer shelf life, grow with smaller seeds, and be easier to harvest, Kindler said.
Kentucky State University has had a dedicated pawpaw research program since 1990, developing the pawpaw as a commercial crop. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, pawpaw trees were planted on East Campus as part of a national study on pawpaw growth throughout the plant's native region.
But overall, the pawpaw is still a native fruit that's remained untamed by commercialization.
Its Nebraska native region is limited to four counties: Douglas, Otoe, Nemaha and Richardson. Any tree you find outside of that region was likely planted by someone, like the trees on UNL's East Campus and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Kindler said.
"If you go to the next county north, you won't find pawpaws," said Dan Kostka, who grows a small pawpaw orchard on his property near Nebraska City. "If you go to the next county west, you won't find pawpaws."
Kostka, a Minnesota native, actually moved to Nebraska because of his undying love for pawpaws. Minnesota's harsh winters made it difficult to grow them. He was left driving six hours to a grower in southeast Iowa in pursuit of the fruit he adores.
"How can I improve this?" Kostka thought. "I knew I had to move to grow pawpaws ... I had to move south."
The retired mechanical engineer ended up outside Nebraska City. He only knew two people when he moved here in 2017 — tree growers he'd met through the horticulture world.
He's been tending to his orchard since. This year, for the first time, he grew a pawpaw crop big enough to sell. He won't say how big his orchard is, or the number of trees he has planted. And there are certain things he doesn't want other growers to know — like what cultivars of pawpaw he's growing, or his specific techniques.
"I don't think I have any secrets. But I operate on need-to-know," Kostka said. "Before I cash in my chips and am plowed under in the pawpaw patch, I want to make sure that everything I know, at least two other people know."
He's not the only slightly obsessed pawpaw fanatic keeping fruit secrets close to his chest. Like the foragers who scavenge for morel mushrooms, pawpaw devotees can guard their go-to spots like gold. An Omaha-area forager only shared the coordinates of his three preferred Indian Cave pawpaw patches if I promised to keep the locations secret. He kept his fourth and favorite foraging spot to himself.
"Morel mushrooms, favorite fishing holes, it's all the same thing," Kostka said. "When people become obsessed with something, they become protective. It's human nature."
Kostka's pawpaw obsession started in the '90s, when he tried his first wild pawpaw in southeast Iowa. He pushed his thumbs into the fruit's soft skin and cracked it open.
"I was already excited because of what my nose was smelling," he said. "Boom! I was smitten. My life is changed."
The taste of a pawpaw is hard to describe. And you'll get a different answer depending on who you ask, and what specific fruit they're eating.
"Ripe is sort of a broad term," said Timothy Battafarano, whose pawpaw trees produced fruit for the first time this year. "Some people like bananas when they're almost green, and some people like bananas when they have brown spots on them."
To Kindler, it's like a mix between vanilla and coconut custard — a description that had me dying to try one.
Kostka picks up caramel. The best fruits, he said, have a coffee note.
Battafarano tastes papaya, with a hint of pineapple and sometimes bubblegum.
In the Flatwater Free Press office, my coworkers took a taste test. Some of the reviews: It had the texture of a mango that's been sitting out in the sun. A caramel-y taste. Like if you mixed guava, papaya and mango all together. The smell reminded my coworkers of mangos, peaches, bananas and pineapples. The taste brought a tropical Starburst to mind.
And my favorite description: "It's like a delicious shampoo."
My own take? I've learned that I prefer them riper. A less ripe pawpaw has a fragrance that's a bit too sickly sweet for my palate. I enjoy the soft, custardy texture. And when it comes to flavor, I pick up vanilla, caramel and something tropical that I can't quite put my finger on.
But truly, it's like nothing I've ever tasted before.
If you really want to know what a pawpaw tastes like, you'll have to find one yourself and get back to me.
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