I gotta give it to mulberries, don’t get enough attention!
The buds of the flower Bauhinia variegata are both cooked amd used for pickles, spectacular stuff.
Someone else mentioned pawpaws but i just want to emphasize pawpaws are the shit. Plus if you live in the Eastern US especially the Midwest pawpaw season is HERE. You have no excuse not to leave your house this moment and find your nearest pawpaw grove.
Not convinced? Congrats you have subscribed to pawpaw facts:
- they are related to the custard apple and were brought this far north in the shit of prehistoric giant sloths
- they taste like somewhere between a mango and a banana, and so our ancestors in all their wisdom gave them names like Indiana banana, Ohio banana, <insert your state here> banana
- they are a CAPITALIST NIGHTMARE as they have terrible shelf life so can really only be eaten fresh or bought from a farmers market
- foraging for pawpaws is super fun as they grow in groves, have super skinny trunks and branches with large long leaves and surprisingly big fruit. To harvest pawpaws you give the trees a gentle shake and ripe fruit will just fall off. Don’t shake too hard or you might knock down fruit that isn’t ripe! Not cool!
- to enjoy just shake em down, cut it open and eat the fresh fruit inside (not the skin). Do not eat the big ass seeds leave them where you found em so that out beautiful native pawpaw groves FLOURISH
All in all pawpaws are 10/10 if you want to feel like a literal Animal Crossing character shaking down trees for sustenance and having a great time eating fresh fruit outdoors
Thank you for this. These are the pawpaw facts I was looking for.
Just doing my part to spread the good word.
I’d never heard of pawpaws before! Good to know, I will seek them out if I ever find myself there :D
Many locals haven’t either! They really are a hidden gem.
You seem like you know about pawpaws. I’ve always been curious. I’m in southern Wisconsin, are they this far north or do I need to travel somewhere?
Looking at a map of their range they might be in the very southernmost part maybe near Madison, but just barely. You’d probably had to head towards Illinois or Indiana for a better chance of finding them.
If you use the app iNaturalist you can also find geotagged groves. Taking a quick peek there’s a handful in southern WI like I said, but they really pick up once you move south.
Appalachian area here, and more people need to know about pawpaws for sure.
Planted three paw paw saplings this spring and it looks like they’re going to make it. If all goes well, I’ll have fruit to share in ten years or so!
Apparently they will only fruit if they are pollinated by a different genetic lineage of tree, so you may need to find a different seed/sapling source if those three came from the same place.
Interesting, I hadn’t heard that. They all came from the county extension office but I have no idea if that means they came from the seeds of one plant. It might just be worth getting another one just in case.
We have those in southern Illinois too
We also have them in West Tennessee.
Is there anywhere you can find these to purchase or just to try? I’ve never had one, but apparently they’re rather delicate so they don’t make it to market very well. It seems like the most common option is knowing someone with a pawpaw tree.
They make it to farmers markets occasionally, and the trees are very easy to identify and surprisingly common. If you know what to look for, most wooded areas in their range will have some pawpaw trees. They generally only fruit for a few weeks in late September/early October but the good news is you’re right on time!
I do my part to spread the good word about pawpaw’s here in PA. We’re somewhat towards the northern edge of where they grow, but they’re around if you know where to look, and if you have a good hippie grocery store near you they sometimes get them in (for about a week, their season is very short) this is about the time of year for them around here, maybe even a bit too late, because of work and weather I didn’t get a chance to go searching for the this year.
If/when I have some property I’m hoping to grow some trees, in the meantime I’m just kind of scattering seeds into the treeline behind my house whenever I get my hands on some. HOA can’t really say anything about it, they’re a native plant so they could conceivably just pop up there on their own. If I’m incredibly lucky maybe some trees will pop up and start bearing fruit in a decade or so whether or not I’m still in this house when it happens.
We have pawpaws in Australia, but they’re a completely different fruit; a variety of papaya that’s rounder and yellower and creamier.
Your ones look kind of like custard apples, are they that kind of thing?
Interesting, will definitely want to try at some point too.
Huckleberries are real y’all.
I had the pleasure of visiting Montana recently and huckleberries are delicious. I basically tried anything I saw that used them (in true tourist fashion).
Not willing to compete for food with a grizzly bear man. I’ll take your cheapest pack of frozen starwberries pls and thank you.
My mom’s tomatoes. They taste like water but my she’s really proud of them and always beams when someone can taste that they’re home grown. So next time you’re at my moms house, make sure to ask for something with tomatoes
Duly noted
Yeah, I love your mom’s tomatoes.
Concord grapes. You all know the flavor, because it’s the flavor that artificial grape flavor is based on, but I’ve only seen the real things in farmers’ markets in the Northeast US. They’re only available for a short period, and they’re amazing. A blend of intensely sweet and intensely tart.
They are insanely good to eat when frozen - it’s like the most amazing popsicle, so crisp and sweet.
Had nearly half a kg of those today and my throat isnt happy. Love em!
Oh, so that’s what they’re based on? I’m not sure I’ll enjoy that, I now really dislike that particular flavour.
Rambutans. They look like fluffy sea urchins but you crack that shell open and it’s soooo good. Much like leches.
Now lychee I like, so I’d love to try these some day!
Ha! Oh wow, now that’s a spicy spelling mistake! 🤌
Yes, rambutans are delicious.
Definitely muscadines and persimmons.
Love love LOVE persimmons.
They’re a vastly underappreciated fruit.
That’s exactly what I was going to say, plus scuppernongs! (Which are a type of muscadine, but just saying, I’ve gotta have some of the purple ones and some green, they really complement each other)
While sugar beet is hardly unknown, try Zuckerrübensirup if you’re near Germany, a black-ish sirup made from them. You can usually also get it in the Netherlands and sometimes in Denmark at least.
There are similar products in other countries, but they lack the distinct taste the German variant has that makes it such an awesome spread! And no, it has nothing to do with Marmite, which is a good thing.
How has no one mentioned saskatoons / juneberries / serviceberries yet? Looks like a blueberry except it grows on a tree.
We absolutely love these. Juneberry jam is a favorite.
Mulberries are awesome; they’re tasty and they’re an excellent source of dietary iron, too.
They have two things going against them, though: as fruits they’re pretty fragile, even more so than other berries; and when they’re flowering, they’re highly allergenic for a lot of people. Lots of cities actually ban growing mulberry trees within city limits because of the allergy problem.
Of stuff that grows right in my neighborhood in the Bay Area, California, I’d point out passionfruit and prickly-pears as somewhat unusual fruit.
Passionfruit vines like to grow on fences; they make trippy-looking flowers that mature into lemon-sized fruits full of tasty gooey arils around their seeds.
Prickly-pears are Opuntia cactus, which seem to do oddly well here in even rough and windy coastal areas. The same species can also be harvested for the young cactus pads, which are nopales in Spanish; skin 'em and fry 'em up and put 'em in vegetarian tacos.
I’ve been wanting to seek out a prickly pear to try. I love grilled nopales so much
Wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca). Incredibly fragrant and sweet. Regular strawberryies can’t compare.
My lawn is filled with wild strawberry but the birds eat them all and just leave me with the false strawberry.
Mirabella plums. Like little miniature plums, they can be quite sweet
Not unknown, but three vegetables I like that seem to be not as widespread outside Germany (though at least in the USA, all seem to be available):
- Kohlrabi (seems to have no English name), texture like a very solid apple, but tastes more cabbage-y (German Kohl means cabbage). Great raw and cooked.
- Pointy cabbage. Like normal cabbage, but more delicate, including in taste. Requires far less cooking (steaming is best).
- Savoy cabbage: looser than normal, and very crinkly leaves. Works better than other cabbages in creamy sauce.
So, uh, I like cabbages and we have a lot of them here ;)
Kohlrabi is good! I think of it like a broccoli-flavoured potato.
Wouldn’t wanna be in the room when you fart!
They aren’t as bad as white cabbage, and in any way, if you fart a lot, you are possibly cooking it wrong.
Pomelo. Like grapefruit without the mess.
Love me some pomelo, and as mid-autumn festival is coming I’m sure there’s going to be a bunch of them on sale!
In Italy we have the chinotto, which is a fruit from the Citrus family that is too bitter to be eaten by itself, but we make a soft drink out of it that is simply perfect.
Chinotto neri/lurisia(even better) 🔛🔝
San Pellegrino’s is just the next thing Nestlé ruined for me
