WSLS Anchor John Carlin had the chance to hunt and harvest one of Virginia's hidden treats - the pawpaw - with a local expert on the fruit, Dan Chitwood.
If I told you there was a fruit growing in our local parks, that was a favorite of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and that it grows in plain view – but you have probably never eaten it – would you think it was a riddle with a trick answer?
Recommended Videos
It's no trick, but there is a mystery. How did we lose track of the pawpaw?
"Now you can see right ahead of us a big thicket, right? That's just a thicket of paw paw's." Pointing up the trail and walking with a bit of excitement in his voice, Dan Chitwood is leading us to a pawpaw patch.
"These right here are pawpaw trees," he says pointing generally to the canopy surrounding the River Walk Trail at Explore Park in Roanoke County.
We find the trees less than 200 feet from the parking lot. And Dan says pawpaws – considered the largest native fruit in America, are just that common, often growing in rich soil along creeks and rivers.
Dan demonstrates his gathering technique, bushwhacking his way some twenty feet off the trail and up a nearby embankment. "If they're ripe, I'll go up there and shake that tree and they'll come out of there. But you don't want 'em to hit your head…" he said.
To harvest pawpaws – you simply shake the tree. Dan jiggles the trunk of a 30-foot tree just up the hill from me, and two pawpaws thunk into the leaves and roll down to my feet. He breaks one open, eats a bite and offers me the other half.
"I don't like the skin and they have big seeds. So what I do…" he says, "…is take a bite and then be careful not to swallow the seeds."
I asked him what I was about to get myself into. "Like nothing you ever tasted. You can't compare it to anything."
And he's right. Describing taste is like trying to describe the color red. Yet it is sweet, with custard like consistency. Some people compare them to mangos, but it's a stretch. Perhaps more like a mango than say, an apple or pear – but really its own flavor.
Dan's father taught him about pawpaws when he was a boy in Ohio. And as an adult he has spent a good deal of time in Roanoke's pawpaw patches. He says there are many pawpaw trees near the river in both the Explore Park and Green Hill Park west of Salem.
He says after two bad years, pawpaws are plentiful this year.
During our search, Dan becomes a man on a pawpaw mission. He ventures from the trail often – even though there are plenty of trees within easy reach. He even takes off his shoes and wades into the muddy river to retrieve a few that rolled away before we could grab them.
"Oh, the biggest one is trying to float away from me here," he said, knee deep in the river and reaching for a pawpaw with a stick.
It took us almost no time to gather a whole basket of paw paw's. I mean this is a fruit that is common, it's easy to find, it's in our local parks it's amazing that no one knows what it is and that no one talks about it -- and that no one eats it. You have to wonder how our culture lost track of the pawpaw.
Dan seems almost offended that people don't know more about pawpaws. And believes Americans have lost the ability to gather their own food.
"This is our fruit and we turn our back on it …I guess we started importing apples and peaches and pears and everything else. You know we've mono-cultured everything to where it fits our needs. Like apples it can't bruise and you have to put 'em in protective coverings
To be sure not everyone will share Dan's enthusiasm or be a fan of the flavor – and that custard like consistency takes some getting used to – but it's not awful – not enough that the pawpaw an original American fruit should disappear from our food radar even while it's growing in plain view.