"My first taste of a wild pawpaw was the tipping point into obsession," says Casey Roe, a marketing consultant for food businesses who has come to be known as the pawpaw forager. "I couldn't believe the bright yellow flesh, the sweet aroma, and the surprisingly tropical flavor of this wild fruit hiding in plain sight all around us in the woods in North Carolina." This quote encapsulates the allure and unexpected nature of the pawpaw, highlighting the project of rediscovering native flavors.
"You can get pawpaws in Rust Belt states, mid-Atlantic states, Appalachia, and parts of the South," says Sara Bir, author of The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook. That covers a significant swath of the U.S., yet neither Bir nor Roe encountered one until adulthood. This reflects the hidden nature of this fruit and how its regional availability is often unknown even to those living near it.
"Many Natives today don't know what they are and have no access to them," says Devon Mihesuah, a professor at the University of Kansas, who is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation and a Chickasaw descendent. "Many tribes have been uprooted from their traditional homelands and are therefore separated from the foods their ancestors gathered." This highlights the disconnection Indigenous people face regarding their traditional foods.
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