Early colonists too were intrigued by the fruit, and a stand of pawpaw trees helped Lewis and Clark survive a tricky patch on the Oregon Trail. According to Devon Mihesuah, whose work at the University of Kansas focuses on empowering indigenous peoples, the pawpaw was not only enjoyed as food, but also valued as the raw material for products as diverse as head-lice shampoo and ropes. Certainly the continent’s original inhabitants were pawpaw fans. The answer to the second question is more complex. Read: An American fruit you haven’t tried “Things like giant ground sloths or mastodons would have eaten the fruit whole, carried it across large distances, and then, through their droppings, deposited seeds.” * “Before humans showed up in North America, the pawpaw was eaten by large megafauna,” Moore explained. When things cooled down, it likely survived in a few pockets of North America, only to be redistributed across the Eastern part of the continent in the intestines of very large animals. The answer to the first question is simple, according to Andrew Moore, the author of Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit: It is a very ancient plant that emerged when the planet was much warmer. What, then, is the tropical pawpaw doing so far north-and why has it been overlooked? The guanábana, or soursop, makes for a common ice-cream flavor in Mexico the cherimoya is one of Peru’s most beloved fruits. The pawpaw belongs to a family of tropical fruits called custard apples, and its cousins are popular throughout Central and South America. What is the pawpaw, and how did we forget it? Listen in this episode for a tale that involves mastodons and head lice, George Washington and Daniel Boone, and a petite but passionate community of pawpaw obsessives. But today most people have never even heard of it, let alone tried it.

In 1916, agricultural experts voted the pawpaw the American fruit most likely to succeed, ahead of blueberries and cranberries.

Andrew moore pawpaw