08/13/11
Way Down Yonder in The Paw-Paw Patch, A story by Jim Pfitzer
Way Down Yonder in The Paw-Paw Patch
On four now… everybody sing along. Ready? One. Two. Three. Four.
Where, oh where, oh where is Susie?
Where, oh where, oh where is Susie?
Where, oh where, of where is Susie?
Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.
Pickin’ up paw-paws; put ‘em in a basket.
Pickin’ up paw-paws; put ‘em in a basket.
Pickin’ up paw-paws; put ‘em in a basket.
Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.
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| Ripe Paw-Paws |
If you were ever a youngen in Southern Appalachia there is a good chance you learned that song. You might have learned different verses. If you were at a girls’ camp you might have been looking for Danny instead of Susie, or you might have put them in your pocket instead of in the basket, but we all picked up paw-paws (or pawpaws, or perhaps papaws) and put them somewhere, and eventually the song called you to action:
Come along, boys, and let’s go find her.
Come along, boys, and let’s go find her.
Come along, boys, and let’s go find her.
Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.
But as much as we loved singing about and imagining little Susie, or Danny, or Nellie, or Timmy down in the paw-paw patch, most of us doing the singing never actually had the opportunity to eat a paw-paw. And we were missing out.
Paw-paws vary in taste and have been bred for flavor characteristics ranging from vanilla to banana to caramel to the variety at Crabtree that is more like a mango in flavor. They are great additions to homemade ice cream or fruit smoothies, or are delicious eaten right out of the skin with a spoon.
To get to the flesh, simply cut through the paw-paw to the seeds and work your way around the fruit as if you were halving an avocado. Pull the halves apart and use a spoon to scrape the flesh and seeds out of the shell. You can clean the seeds in your mouth, then spit them out if you are eating them “straight” or pick the seeds out first if you are adding them to a tasty treat.
In spite of their delicious meat, the paw-paw fruit has never taken root commercially largely because it isn’t ripe until it falls off tree, and it only has a two to three day shelf life-maybe a up to a week if harvested right away and refrigerated immediately. The trees are also difficult to transplant, so growing paw-paw orchards would be difficult.
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| Young Paw-Paw Patch |
They are, however, easy to grow from seed, and because of this are nearly always found in patches in the wild. They like at least partial shade, and prefer a moist environment-near a spring, in a lowland environment, or in a riparian zone.
If you would like to try growing them, harvest the seeds from your paw-paw and plant them in late summer or fall in a shady place–perhaps under a high tree canopy or on the north side of your house or large trees. The seeds will spend the next year putting down a hardy taproot, then poke through the ground in the middle of next summer. It will probably take five or six years to get fruit, but the wait will be worth it to have your own native fruit growing in your yard or woods!
