In the heart of fall, the joy of the harvest keeps the early evening at bay. A favorite comfort food is roasted root vegetables with plenty of garlic, and the other day while searching for the perfect golden beets at the local co-op, I nearly walked into a basket of paw paws. I was overwhelmed and, honestly, a bit weepy as I grabbed a few, eager to slice them into vanilla ice cream that evening, as suggested to me by Sheri Crabtree, a researcher at Kentucky State University’s Pawpaw Research Facility, when we conducted this interview last summer.
Photos courtesy of Jonathan Palmer/KYSU Land Grant Program.
This season, we’re focusing on a few themes that came into light through our past interviews. We asked folks from all over “What is Appalachia?” and the most important issues for most seemed to be intrinsically tied to the health and beauty of our environment. There are so many people doing such incredible, wholehearted work in Appalachian environmental preservation that we thought we’d highlight a few.
Sheri Crabtree has always been interested in crop and food production, watching her father plant and grow several varieties as a hobby. The Kentucky native hails from Bowling Green, and currently works and lives in Frankfurt, the state capital. However, she had never eaten a pawpaw until she started the job she holds today. Crabtree works in the world’s one and only full-time pawpaw research facility at Kentucky State University. The program itself began 1990, initiated by Dr. Brett Callaway,directed toward developing pawpaw as a new commercial tree fruit crop for Kentucky and the Southeastern United States.
Pawpaw is also known as “the forgotten fruit of the Cumberlands”, the “Indiana Banana”, or “Poor Man’s Banana”. A tasty, little-known treat, it tastes like a decadent cross between a banana, pineapple, and mango. It is currently being developed as a new commercial crop, but spent years forgotten due to its difficulty in harvesting. A pawpaw must be hand tested for ripeness with a firm squeeze, and it’s difficult to transport without unattractive bruising. However, the humble pawpaw is making a comeback! Used in baking, preserves, jellies, and jams, Sheri Crabtree’s recommendation is to try it in ice cream, especially during the annual field day. Her grandmother knew what they were from days of foraging, but today we buy “peaches from California, apples from the Northwest, strawberries from Mexico” as the food industry becomes more and more industrialized. Kentucky State University’s close connection to the pawpaw is not only a preservation of environmental stewardship, but an insistence on knowing the food you consume. The pawpaw sustained Appalachians as a sweet treat, but also held medicinal properties to Native American and Indigenous people. The earliest documented mention of pawpaws is in the 1541 report of the Spanish de Soto expedition, who found Native Americans cultivating it east of the Mississippi River, and it is rumored that George Washington enjoyed it as a favorite dessert.
The research facility is open to the community for tours, and their community extends far beyond their county. They do receive international visits on a fairly regular basis and have held the International Paw Paw Conference four times. A spring grafting workshop lets community members learn how to graft their own trees. They have a robust seed program in high demand, often running out before season’s end. The work of the facility is in curating the very best of these seeds into beautiful variations on an old friend. They do this through grafting, a system wherein a branch is cut from one tree and attached to another so that it might bear fruit similar to that from which it was grafted. (Followers of the blog will recall Mark Blashford’s Rootstock Puppet Co. as gleaning inspiration from this system of growing.)
A gem of unique Appalachian heritage, the research facility is a tremendous testament to the preservation of land and nature so intrinsic to these communities. Cold-hardy and requiring a gentle touch of true connection, the pawpaw tree is not so unlike the Appalachian people. The care taken to cultivate an oft-forgotten fruit is the errand of people dedicated to the flexibility of tradition.
Find out more, and get seeds and recipes here:
https://www.kysu.edu/academics/college-acs/school-of-ace/pawpaw/index.php .
Pawpaw Information Website
Photos courtesy of Jonathan Palmer/KYSU Land Grant Program.