Today's pawpaw: a visual essay with ice cream option.

Today's pawpaw: a visual essay with ice cream option.

Pawpaw fruit (Asimina triloba) ready for eating as detected by its alluring tropical odor and soft-to-the-touch skin. Notice the color of the skin turns from light green to slightly yellow with a few brown spots when ripe. This is when I prefer to eat them. Note: although not my preference, some folks wait until the skin turns a grayish-brown-black before eating. 

A view of the inside of the fruit. 

Inedible black seeds removed from edible fruit flesh. Seed can be planted right away, or stored in the refrigerator for future planting. For more information on planting seeds and cultivation of trees  click here or here or here. For more information on pawpaws in general click here.

Remove the flesh from the inedible skin with a spoon or your mouth. 

The delicious custardy pawpaw flesh is now ready for eating fresh as is; or made into ice cream. BTW, the pawpaw packs an impressive nutritional profile: 3 oz of fruit supplies more than half of our daily iron needs and over a third of our daily magnesium needs! That's a lot of nutrient density for a fruit. Click to see more nutritional information. 

Recipe from Foraging & Feasting: Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook, by Dina Falconi; illustrated by Wendy Hollender

Recipe from Foraging & Feasting: Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook, by Dina Falconi; illustrated by Wendy Hollender