MAGGIE KEITH: In this episode of The Farmer and the Foodie.

SHERI CRABTREE: So, they kind of have this tropical appearance and tropical flavor to the fruit, but they can grow here in Kentucky where it gets cold.

Basically, any recipe that calls for banana, you can substitute pawpaw.

LINDSEY MCCLAVE: We're going to make pawpaw bread and pawpaw butter and a pawpaw smoothie.

I'm Maggie Keith and I'm the farmer.

And I'm Lindsey McClave and I am the foodie.

In this episode, we went to Kentucky State University's research farm and got to tour their pawpaw groves, which were amazing and we get to learn all about the incredible edible pawpaw.

A pawpaw is a tree fruit.

So, it's sort of like if a banana and a mango got together and then had just a little bit of pineapple mixed in there.

But it definitely has this tropical vibe to it, which I love because Kentucky is not known to be a tropical place.

Yeah.

Pawpaws are definitely well known as a native fruit and one that grows well naturally and wildly on farms.

And so, a lot of farmers had introduced me to pawpaws by asking me, "Do you have pawpaws on your tree?"

And eventually, I knew how to answer, but at first, I was kind of like "What are you talking about?"

We met Sheri Crabtree when we got there.

I've learned a lot from her about how important it is to have a good fruiting variety.

And I appreciated also learning from her, "Here's the group.

Okay, so, we found that this variety had extra sweet pawpaw fruit and this one really had a hardier skin, so it withstood weather better and so, let's grab these two together and create a whole new type of pawpaw variety.

And that, to me, is just mind blowing, and the science and research that goes into it is really valuable.

And these pawpaw seeds are going all across the world, right here from Kentucky.

I thought that was really neat.

Well, this is a beautiful morning.

It is.

Oh, the sunrise has been beautiful.

It has.

Thank you for getting up early and meeting us out here in the pawpaw orchard.

Well, thank you all for coming.

We're glad to have you.

So, we're here in one of our pawpaw orchards at KSU Research and Demonstration Farm and I'll be glad to show you around.

- Please do.

- Great.

I haven't spent much time with pawpaws.

I'm always looking for them in my woods.

And so, what are some of the first things you look for when you're trying to spot a pawpaw?

They usually grow along riverbanks and streams and areas like that and the understory of the forest is the kind of habitat that they like and they form big patches in the wild, so you'll see dozens, or even hundreds of little pawpaws popping up, forming a big pawpaw patch in the woods.

So, they have these big leaves, they kind of have a tropical appearance.

And that's one interesting thing about pawpaws; it's in the custard apple family, which is mostly tropical fruits, and pawpaw is the only temperate member of the family.

So, they kind of have this tropical appearance and tropical flavor to the fruit, but they can grow here in Kentucky where it gets cold.

So, you're looking for these large leaves, large, almost kind of drooping leaves, and then you see the fruit are in clusters and kind of look like fat bananas.

So, another name for pawpaw, common names, are a poor man's banana, or Kentucky banana, or Hoosier banana, depending on what state you're in, they change it.

You can look for the fruit and the trees this time of year.

So, late August into late September, it's when pawpaws get ripe in Kentucky.

And so, how do you know a pawpaw is ready to eat?

Well, they usually stay green.

The skin will be green even when they're ripe.

Sometimes, they'll turn a little bit yellow, but they're soft when they're ripe, so that's the main way you know.

LINDSEY: So, a little slight squeeze?

SHERI: Yes.

Kind of like a peach.

But they will also fall on the ground.

They'll drop off the tree when they're ripe.

So, if you're looking at trees, you see a few fruit on the ground under the tree, you know they're ripe and you know the fruit on that tree are starting to get ripe.

And so, once you pick the pawpaw, is it like some fruit where you put it on the counter and let it continue to ripe in, or is it an "enjoy it right now" type of situation?

Well, it has a pretty short shelf life, so a little bit of both.

So, if you pick it when it's not completely ripe, it has to be at least beginning to ripen.

So, if it's completely hard, it will not ripen on the counter off the tree.

But if it's starting to get a little bit soft and not quite ready to eat, yeah, you can put it on your counter, in two or three days, it'll be ready to eat.

But once they're ripe, they need to be used within a couple of days.

Okay.

MAGGIE: So, what type of pawpaw trees do we see here?

SHERI: This orchard is mostly the cultivar sunflower in Susquehanna.

And a lot of people don't realize that there are named cultivars of pawpaw, just like there's honeycrisp apples and gala apples.

There are named improved cultivars of pawpaw also.

And are they improved because you're going for the best flavor and the best fruit?

Yeah, so, it's a number of things; best flavor, fruit size, yield, disease resistance, early ripening, those are all things that we look for.

And so, the fruit starts to ripen, and then, do you all harvest all of the fruit and what happens to it once you harvest it?

So, we harvest the fruit.

We process a lot of it, which we'll show you processing here a little bit in the kitchen, and freeze it.

So, we use it to make ice cream.

We make jam.

You can make baked goods with pawpaw.

Basically, any recipe that calls for banana, you can substitute pawpaw in equal parts.

So, we've made pawpaw muffins, pawpaw bread, and things like that.

The pawpaw fruit has a really creamy texture.

It's kind of like a ripe avocado texture and so, it's really good and anything creamy like custards, crème brulée.

We had a chef that worked with us that made a pawpaw crème brulée once.

- It was really good.

- Oh, that's really fine.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

SHERI: They're a native plant, so they're actually the largest tree fruit native to North America.

They're pretty low maintenance compared to apples and peaches that have more insect and disease problems.

LINDSEY: I love, as I just keep looking, I'm like, "Oh, there's another bunch.

There's a bunch."

It's just so fun when, once you see them, they start to just sort of appear.

MAGGIE: Yeah.

It's very prolific.

I'm amazed by how much fruit is on each tree.

Yeah.

They get 30 to 50 pounds of fruit per tree for mature trees for these improved cultivars, and, again, that's part of the reason we breed these new improved cultivars.

If you look for wild trees, a lot of times, the wild trees don't have a lot of fruit on them.

LINDSEY: What is the general life span of a pawpaw tree?

SHERI: It varies a lot from growing conditions, what the soil is like.

But usually when they get 25, 30 years old, you start to see them decline a little bit, get a little bit older.

This orchard is 17 years old, so you see these trees are all still healthy and producing.

They do fall when they're ripe, but can you also hand harvest them?

Yes, you can hand harvest.

So, basically, it's by touch to hand harvest.

So, you go up, you feel the fruit.

If it's a little bit soft, similar to a peach, give it a little gentle wiggle, gentle pull, and they'll come off in your hand when they're ripe.

So, if you touch them and they're hard and you have to twist them and yank them and pull them off the tree, then they're not ripe yet.

So, leave them for a few more days, and check it again.

But yeah, they'll basically just drop off in your hand when they're ripe.

LINDSEY: And I do see some black spots on here.

So, is that natural to that?

Is that a disease that's happening?

Because I know there's a lot going on in this orchard.

Yes.

Yeah.

So the black spot -- actually, there's a couple of things on this fruit.

The black spot that you see here is a fungal disease, and of course, that is minor and that's just cosmetic.

It's not a rot, when you press on it, it's not soft.

This is still very edible.

Right, when you cut it open, it's fine on the inside.

But in some cases, it can cover the fruit, or it can cause the fruit to crack.

So, that's why we're looking at different control measures, looking at copper and sulfur and some different fungicides to hopefully control it.

And also, there's kind of this russeting that's natural, that's not a disease.

So, that happens kind of from the sun, a little bit of sunburn, and from wind, from the leaves rubbing against the fruit and things like that.

Again, totally still edible, just one of the natural occurrences in the life of a pawpaw.

Exactly, yes.

Just something that happens to the pawpaw fruit, but there's still lots left in the tree that we can hand harvest.

LINDSEY: Well, and it sounds like you've helped, over the years, breed trees that are the most productive and smart and selective.

Yeah, that is our hope: to get new improved pawpaw cultivars out there on the market for, like I said, backyard growers, or commercial growers, to help improve the fruit quality out there.

So, we wanted to learn more about KSU and the orchard programs that they have and so, I got to talk to Dr. Pomper and he informed me of all they had going on, and definitely had a lot of knowledge and a lot of history around orchards and running different farms.

Pawpaws are native to Kentucky, but I don't see many pawpaw orchards around Kentucky.

Can you tell me more about that and how we can maybe encourage more pawpaws in Kentucky?

Right.

And there are a few commercial orchards, but a lot of the pawpaws are planted in backyards across Kentucky.

And so, basically, it comes down to it is difficult to get someone to produce a true fruit crop and especially with pawpaw, it can take up to 5 years or longer to really come into full production.

Getting folks to make sure they have buy-in, that they're going to be basically waiting for their land to make some money on this type of crop for that long time, it doesn't make it as attractive as some vegetable crop, or peaches, or apples where you might have fruit in 2 years.

Anything that's unknown, people are a little more hesitant to get into.

And of course, we've seen kiwi explode through the years so I think people are more accepting of different types of fruits now than they used to be.

But I do think that's another thing; consumer acceptance of new crops.

Since it is a fragile fruit, i it harder to distribute?

Yes, and I think that's another kind of stumbling block to it being a fresh market fruit because it is highly perishable.

It is trying to get that packaging right, trying to ship them, and then get them there in good condition.

And so, that's why we're interested in processing and you'll see a lot of work that we've done trying to work out processing for small producers, and hopefully, larger producers to be able to take that pulp and use that as a value-added product.

So, is it a great crop for a diversified farm environment since it does take a while to get income from the crop, then you can have other things on your farm to make up for that?

Right.

I guess, as a horticulturist, I'll say you should always have a diverse group of crops and you want have something that comes in in the spring like strawberries, you want to have something in midsummer like blackberries, and then you want to have something like blueberries that kind of hit a middle area, and then pawpaws, or apples.

And so, yeah, we always recommend folks to have multiple crops anyway.

So, pawpaw would be one of those crops that folks would want to work with.

Can you tell me about the cultivars of pawpaws?

Yeah, and there's quite a few varieties out there, but K State has selected three cultivars right now that we think are really good-- KSU-Atwood, KSU-Chappell, KSU-Benson-- and they're really good quality fruit, really good flavor.

People are always looking for different flavors and so, we continue to do our breeding program and try and select for superior pawpaws.

But there's a lot of opportunity there to also maybe select for some harder fruit that could ship better, too.

MAGGIE: Dr. Pomper, can you tell us more about this farm?

DR. KIRK POMPER: So, we're at the Kentucky State University Harold R. Benson Research and Demonstration Farm, and it was actually purchased in 1986.

It's about 300 acres, there's a lot of different projects going on here.

Everything from goats to organic agriculture to fruit crops and vegetable crops.

And the pawpaw program started here about 1990, and so, we're right in the middle of the native range of pawpaw.

So, a lot of the work that we do here, it really represents the growing conditions of a lot of the areas that folks would be interested in growing pawpaws.

What are the agricultural programs that KSU offers specific to pawpaws?

The academic offerings that we have, we do have special problems or individual study with pawpaw.

We have plant science and organic and sustainable agriculture courses, too, where pawpaw is covered.

But focusing in, then we also have a graduate program in environmental studies where folks actually focus on doing research in pawpaw.

And so, there's been probably over 15 students now who've had some project to do with pawpaw through the years.

MAGGIE: Yeah, we saw some of the little tags from one of the research programs.

DR. POMPER: Exactly, yeah.

So, they're helping answer a lot of different questions, whether it's pollination biology to production, to trying to control diseases.

And so, with pawpaws, what sort of soil are you looking for and what kind of climate?

Pawpaw is native here in Kentucky.

it's actually native up to the northern part of the United States, Southern Michigan, kind of southern around Ohio, and as far north as kind of Southern New York, and as far west as kind of Eastern Nebraska and Texas.

We're kind of smack in the middle of the native range of pawpaw, and so, it does very well in our climate.

It does well on soils that not do not have high clay content.

They do not like a lot of clay.

They don't like to stand in water very long, but otherwise, they're pretty adaptable.

Jeremy, Anji, thank you so much for having us into your kitchen today.

I am just dying to know what in the world we do with the pawpaws, once we have them off the trees.

Can we see what a ideal pawpaw fruit looks like?

You cut right through, it's not like one big nut in the middle.

I'd love to see what the structure on the inside is like.

So, you just put it down, right?

Like a long...

So, you would deconstruct them like this and then what is the next step?

JEREMY: You can kind of push them through a colander, or a food mill.

What we've used is this Roma food mill.

You can actually modify these to get it to work with pawpaw fairly well.

And so, then, you'll start cranking it through and what you should start seeing is pulp coming out of it.

LINDSEY: Can I try to do a crank?

JEREMY: Yeah, sure thing.

It takes a little bit of elbow grease, I think.

[both chuckle] LINDSEY: Love it.

It's definitely got a mush banana texture, too, as I pull it out, it looks so good.

MAGGIE: I'm really excited to make some pawpaw bread.

I loved visiting KSU and all the pawpaw trees and orchards.

It was just a really neat experience.

And as I stand by this nice tower of pawpaws from Kentucky State, I am just more and more appreciating the beauty of them and their scent.

I feel like I'm in a tropical oasis over here.

I love that when you have a hyper seasonal ingredient and like really diving into recipes for those.

So, I've already got ideas for next season, but for this season, we're going to make some pawpaw bread and pawpaw butter and a pawpaw smoothie.

Banana bread seems like a natural choice.

Our friend, Erin, is a big banana bread fanatic, and was a generous enough to share her go-to recipe with us.

But we made it ours by adding some pawpaw to it.

So we've got our dry ingredients already ready over here.

It's just flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.

So, that's all mixed together.

And then we're going to start our wet ingredients with a half a cup of butter melted and to that, we're going to add the ever important pawpaw.

It looks like a giant bowl of caramel.

Yeah, it kind of does, doesn't it?

And smells great.

So, this is just the pulp from the pawpaw.

So, this is what we processed at the orchard the other day and I'm going to need about a cup and a third, which, if we're talking banana world, equals about four mashed bananas.

MAGGIE: Okay.

LINDSEY: So, sort of an equivalent there, but this is loose.

With baking, you need to be specific, but we also want to bring this pawpaw into play here.

So I'm going to do about, like I said, a cup and a third.

So, it's nice.

So, we're really going to be able to taste this pawpaw.

LINDSEY: That is my-- yes.

I mean, I think it's got a wonderful flavor that is not overwhelming, but is very distinctive.

This is plenty.

You can see how moistened that is, but we want to make sure our bread is really nice and tender, so we're going to add some full fat Greek yogurt as well.

MAGGIE: Delicious.

I always had the hardest time finding the full fat.

It's like everyone wants to skim everything.

All I want is the full fat yogurt, If you happen to have, and Greek yogurt, too, because it has less moisture in it so you want that thickened yogurt.

Now, if you are having a hard time with that, you can substitute sour cream, or crème fraîche can work.

That's a good idea.

LINDSEY: And buttermilk could work here, too.

Buttermilk is a little bit thinner, so I would maybe use less.

So, there are other options there, but sort of just going for that sour-y bite and we're going to throw some vanilla in to just sort of help boost up the other flavors, just a little over a teaspoon.

And then, we need a couple of eggs to help bring it all together.

And I am going to crack my eggs first into a separate bowl just to make sure they're good.

And that was something that I always saw people do and thought was a silly extra step and then I, too, fell victim to a bad egg.

And I put it right into a big bowl of ingredients and had to start all over, so I will never.

Yes, not the pawpaw.

So, it's one of those, if you think it's not important, it actually does make a difference.

So, we're going to now just mix all of this together, blend it as well as we can.

It takes just a second because you do have sort of the thick pawpaw puree, and then the yogurt.

It's going to make a very thick batter.

I was almost surprised how thickened it was.

You don't want to overmix it, though.

You kind of want that pancake consistency but a little bit of lumpiness is not a bad thing.

So, let's go ahead, and I'll let you help.

Yeah, start to bring it in.

MAGGIE: Yeah.

It is a very thick liquid.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- With that pawpaw.

And just want to make sure it's not overmixed yet, it is well combined so some of the flour can kind of stick to the bottom.

So, that was something just, generally, when I mix, I feel like two, and I'm using my stand mixer, I always need to do a second pass and just scrape the very bottom to make sure you don't have little clumps of flour that end up in your cookies, or your cakes, or your breads, or whatever deliciousness you're creating.

I'm going to get down in here and just do an extra little scrape and perfect.

- You can smell the pawpaw.

- You do.

I love that because that tells me the flour and everything else is not masking what's going into the batter.

So, I have a large loaf pan.

You can absolutely make these in small loaf pans, medium, muffins.

We're going to bake on 325.

Timing will vary dramatically based on your oven, what mother nature thinks that day, all of those types of things.

We're going to probably bake for between an hour and an hour and a half.

You just want to check it.

I'd start checking after 45 minutes and you want a cake tester to go down to the center and back out cleanly is what you're looking for.

So, for this size pan in my oven, I'm going to start checking around 45 minutes, but we'll expect it to probably take an hour and a half even until it's nice and ready to eat.

So, we will go ahead and if you want to hold.

Yeah, scoop it in for me and you can see how thick it is.

It's a thick one.

It is very thick.

So, once we get it in there, we will kind of spread it and smooth it out on the top and then we're going to finish it with beautiful flakes of Malden salt and into the oven it goes.

Okay.

So, now that this is in here and as we said, it's a very thick batter, we're just going to kind of spread it out and make sure it is at every corner.

And now, little tip from Erin that I love was sprinkling a whole bunch of flaky Maldon salt and Maldon is just a really lovely finishing salt.

While that's baking, we should go ahead and whip up our pawpaw butter, and then I'm very excited to learn about the smoothie that you have in mind for us.

All right, into the oven we go.

So, again, we're really wanting to bring the pawpaw home and celebrate it since it is so hyper seasonal.

So, I have a stick of unsalted grass-fed butter here.

This is definitely a time that using high quality butter is well worth it and it's at room temperature, so you want it nice and easy to mash.

And then I'm going to go ahead and add about three spoonfuls of the pawpaw puree.

This is definitely a taste-as-you-go experience, which there's nothing wrong with that.

I'm happy to do so.

And then we're going to add-- since it's unsalted butter and I like to work with unsalted butter so I can control the amount of salt in my dish, be it a hot dish, a baking dish, anything like that.

Unless a recipe specifically calls for salted butter, I always go with unsalted.

So, I'm going to do a nice Maldon salt flake there and then we're just going to get to mashing and whipping.

And in doing this, we're just obviously trying to combine the ingredients, but also work a little bit of air into that butter so it's just light.

Hence, the importance in making sure it is room temperature.

But yeah, we've got a nice lightly sort of peachy-colored butter now, so we just have to decide if it tastes good.

- Right.

Okay.

- [chuckles] - Cheers.

- Cheers.

Mm.

You can taste the pawpaw.

It's so good.

I'm glad you went with the grass-fed butter.

You can tell it's the high quality.

It does.

It's not just the taste but the texture.

Everything about it really does make a difference.

I think a pinch more Maldon salt and it's ready for our bread.

Let's do it.

MAGGIE: I love a good smoothie and so we are going to make a pawpaw smoothie to really get that tropical feel.

It's almost going to be like we're sipping a daiquiri.

We keep saying it smells tropical in here, but it actually really does, especially now that we have pineapple and mango out and banana.

So, I got this recipe from our friend, Summer, and so, she sent us this recipe.

She had two different takes.

One was tropical, which we're going to do, and the other is more classic, like banana-nut milk type creamy smoothie.

But we're going to go tropical so we feel like we're just hanging out on the beach.

All right.

What we're going to do, I always start with my ice cubes, but what we've done is we put the pawpaw in an ice tray and this is a great way to freeze it and use it for smoothies.

LINDSEY: I love that.

And so, are we adding any ice at all?

MAGGIE: No, we don't need to add any ice.

All of these items are frozen and so we're going to do four cubes per person.

So, since there's two of us right now, we'll just do eight cubes.

LINDSEY: What a great tip, too, because the ice might dilute the flavor a little bit and this is just like killing two birds with one stone.

- Yes.

- Love it.

You always want to make sure your liquid is at the bottom.

So, I'm going to do two cups of mango juice, and this is just pure mango.

- Unsweetened, I'm sure.

- Unsweetened.

And then we're going to do half a cup of pineapple, frozen.

So key that everything is frozen here.

- Yes.

- I love that.

But also, you can buy all of these ingredients frozen if you're not doing yourself.

- I bought all of this.

- Yeah.

The pineapple and the mango.

I love chunked mango and pineapple.

It makes it super simple.

And then same half a cup, it's kind of like equal parts everything.

Half a cup, half a cup, half a cup.

- Love that type of recipe.

- It's really easy.

Yes.

And then you have two half bananas because you get that banana flavor from the pawpaw so you don't need a ton.

And then one optional thing to always do with any smoothie is to add some protein powder.

This is a collagen-based vanilla flavored.

You could do unflavored, whatever you're looking for.

But I thought, since we're working moms, we need a little protein.

LINDSEY: Absolutely.

- Meal on the go.

- Yes.

And I think the vanilla will compliment everything nicely, too.

That's what I was thinking.

It called for just neutral flavored collagen protein, but I thought why not make it vanilla?

And there is vegetarian proteins out there, too, if you're looking for that.

So now we're just going to whip this up.

I like to start on really low.

To kind of just get it going?

MAGGIE: And then increase as we go.

LINDSEY: Love it.

Wow.

So, is there anything you're looking for while you continue to blend it because you blend it-- I mean you can see how creamy and thick it is there.

What were you looking for?

I was waiting for it to become creamier, but also, you'll see the color changed a little bit.

It became lighter, and so, that means that juice is totally incorporated in with the banana and in with the pawpaw so the color gets a little diluted.

Oh my gosh.

I feel healthier already.

So, we'll taste some to make sure it's perfect.

But then we'll have Summer enjoy this with us, along with our friend, Courtney.

LINDSEY: Oh, fantastic.

All right.

Yum.

Well, that's so good.

Take me to the beach.

[chuckles] No, that is extremely refreshing and I love that you talked about working mom on the go.

This is refreshing.

I could truly take this as I run errands, but know it's going to give me a little bit of nourishing quality, too.

Well, I think we've done the pawpaw justice.

- We have.

- Yeah.

So, I can't wait to share this along with our bread and butter with Summer and Courtney.

And it's a beautiful day outside, so we should enjoy it outdoors.

- Perfect.

- All right.

LINDSEY: I am so excited about how we were able to bring pawpaw into everything on our dish today and that we were able to celebrate this hyperlocal and hyper seasonal ingredient.

MAGGIE: I was expecting a beach front, but I'll take your backyard.

Well, this is going to take us there in spirit.