I recently got my hands on a bag of ground cherries. It’s so rare that I try a fruit or vegetable that I’ve never eaten before, but I’m not alone in getting a taste of neglected varieties of produce. Encouraged by the slow food movement and by the successes of organics, farmers are beginning to bring back original American tastes.
In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, farmers are bringing back the pawpaw. According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the creamy-fleshed fruit is America’s largest native fruit, and tastes something like a cross between bananas, mangoes, pineapples, and vanilla. Explorers Lewis and Clark credited the fruit with saving them from starvation.
Seasonally offered through Slow Food marketing arm Heritage Foods USA (along with heritage pork, turkey, and other meats), you can get a dozen pawpaws for $107. Heritage defends its perogative to ship a dozen fruits across the country:
‘Eat local is fine if you live in Napa or Vermont,’ argues Patrick Martins, Heritage’s president and the founder of Slow Food USA: ‘But what about the [purebred pork] farmer in Kansas with no local population? What about getting a taste of wild salmon?’
Until the breeds–the light, sweet Duroc pork, for instance–are reestablished, he maintains, eating locally shouldn’t rule out the imperative to ‘ship nationally.’
Wow, that’s pretty nuts. At my local farmers market in Oakland, a guy was selling pawpaws for $3/pound, but in reality he was having trouble giving them away. It’s all marketing, I guess…
That’s ridiculous, $107 dollars for 12 pawpaws, even considering the shipping – that’s basically $9 per pawpaw. For years they’ve been trying to get mangosteens imported, and they’re considered by many to be the best fruit in the world and have to come all the way from Southeast Asia, and they’re only a little more at $11 per fruit, whereas the pawpaw can be grown almost anywhere in America! You can buy it’s tropical cousins for much cheaper!
Also, if you like ground cherries, why don’t you grow them? Being in the tomato family, they’re annuals whose care is relatively straitforward.
also, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen ground cherries in supermarkets before – so not that hard to get
I paid 66 cents for a paw paw from Lagier Ranch this weekend. It tasted like a very ripe banana with a texture like mango. I would have felt very ripped off and annoyed to pay $107 for a dozen.
Lagiers paw paws
http://www.lagierranches.com/current.html
Also they don’t keep well so the dozen would have to be eaten within a week if not sooner.
You always see those pretty pictures of green paw paws, but the reality is that they are like plantains, best when almost black in color.
Like heidipie said, Lagiers has had problems for years getting people to buy them. Lagier sells frozen pulp since they have a lot left over.
I guess the marketing strategy to make them sound exotic and charge big bucks.
There is no reason to ship a product like this nationally. The better strategy would be to encourage local farmers to grow them since they are easily grown in much of the US.
Nobody NEEDS a paw paw. But we do need to conserve energy and there seems to be no logic to adding yet another food product to be shipped long distance.
More on paw paws
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/436289
Point of clarification:
You said:
“Seasonally offered through Slow Food marketing arm Heritage Foods, USA…”
I just wanted to make it clear that while the goals are similar, and while Heritage Foods USA was founded by former Slow Food USA executive director Patrick Martins, it is not the “marketing arm” of Slow Food, nor is it formally connected in any way.
Peace,
kmf
Just a note…pawpaws may grow in many locations but they are notoriously poor pollinators (hence notoriously poor producers) over much of their range. Wild pawpaws range from smaller than a golf ball to very large…but usually at the smaller end of the spectrum. Additionally, pawpaw taste varies widely by tree. The best I ever had was from a Petersen’s Pawpaws variety called Susquehanna. But even with hand pollination, this variety produces very few, but quite large pawpaws. Even culitvars will act differently in different locations and under different conditions.
Pawpaws do not ship well, and do not lend themselves towards being handled in large lots, hence there is a lot of extra handling. I’m not commenting on what is fair $, but comparing a guy who has a few and wants to add a few bucks to his farm stand with a wider market situation, or a specialty crop situation is not exactly fair. You’re hopefully not paying for someone to give you a pound of whatever they can stuff into a bag. You can go to any chain supermarket and get bland food like that. You’re hopefully paying for all of the trials and labor to bring a good tasting local food to your table. There is a huge diference in the cost of a grower who paid for varieties of trees and those who planted some wild trees. Many wild pawpaws have a metallic aftertaste. As with anything, you often get what you pay for…like it or not.
Just a note…pawpaws may grow in many locations but they are notoriously poor pollinators (hence notoriously poor producers) over much of their range. Wild pawpaws range from smaller than a golf ball to very large…but usually at the smaller end of the spectrum. Additionally, pawpaw taste varies widely by tree. The best I ever had was from a Petersen’s Pawpaws variety called Susquehanna. But even with hand pollination, this variety produces very few, but quite large pawpaws. Even culitvars will act differently in different locations and under different conditions.
Pawpaws do not ship well, and do not lend themselves towards being handled in large lots, hence there is a lot of extra handling. I’m not commenting on what is fair $, but comparing a guy who has a few and wants to add a few bucks to his farm stand with a wider market situation, or a specialty crop situation is not exactly fair. You’re hopefully not paying for someone to give you a pound of whatever they can stuff into a bag. You can go to any chain supermarket and get bland food like that. You’re hopefully paying for all of the trials and labor to bring a good tasting local food to your table. There is a huge diference in the cost of a grower who paid for varieties of trees and those who planted some wild trees. Many wild pawpaws have a metallic aftertaste. As with anything, you often get what you pay for…like it or not.