Want to taste a pawpaw or grow your own? Here’s how [podcast]

• By Julia Bischoff/LNP | LancasterOnline

As warm summer days wane, an indigenous sweet treat comes back into the spotlight. That’s right, as locals know, pawpaw season is already upon us. The green fruits growing from the pawpaw tree are finally ripe, but only for a limited time.

If you’re looking to take advantage of the moment, there’s a local festival this weekend you might want to check out. It’s the Pawpaw Festival at Horn Farm Center in Hellam Township, York County. Here’s what you can expect:

• Thousands of pounds of pawpaws.

• Pawpaws for purchase, including trees for planting.

• Vendors selling their own twist on pawpaws, such as hot sauce and beer

• Live music, weather permitting.

• Over 40 different local vendors, food trucks, nonprofits and, crafts folks and artisans.

• Opportunities to learn more about the Horn Fam Center, its educational programs, and conservation

To learn more, listen to LNP | LancasterOnline Podcasts on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite streaming platform. Make sure to subscribe for new episodes! 

Tickets to the event can be purchased at hornfarmcenter.org. Andrew Leahy, education and outreach specialist at Horn Farm Center, says the festival is a great way to get new people on the farm.

“It’s really the one time of year that I see the farm blossom with so many new and curious folks,” Leahy said. “And so it’s a great way to get those folks connected, obviously not just to pawpaws, but to all of the things that we do here at the Horn Farm Center throughout the year.

If you’re from around here you may already be familiar with the taste, smell, and look of a pawpaw. However, did you know about the cultural history behind the fruit? Well, Leahy says there’s plenty to talk about, starting with how pawpaws got here in the first place.

“So things like mastodons and ground sloths that ate the fruits as they migrated north, and during the retreat of the last glaciers probably deposited pawpaw,” said Leahy. “Another element of the pawpaws dispersal is certainly indigenous people who did cultivate this plant at a wide scale throughout Appalachia.”

Native Americans continued to cultivate it throughout their history, and ripe pawpaws became an important marker for summer turning to fall.

“The pawpaw moon is referred to with regard to September. So it was a part of the calendar, really for multiple indigenous tribes,” Leahy said. “And we have evidence that many indigenous tribes were not just subsisting on wild populations, but we’re actively tending and fostering the health of pawpaws.”

When Europeans began colonization, opinions of the pawpaw varied. It was said to be George Washington’s favorite fruit, according to Leahy. Others, however, did not think so highly of it.

“The smell can be off-putting to some people, even the flavor, and in many ways, this was used in Europe to fuel some anti-indigenous, rhetoric,” Leahy explained. “The pawpaw kind of became a part of that, and the same with enslaved peoples as well. It became associated with lowliness and with the margins of society.”

Opinion has certainly changed, Leahy says that their annual festival is quite popular, drawing in over 2,000 people for the event. There’s still plenty to learn about the pawpaw, so tune in for this episode of LNP | LancasterOnline Podcasts to learn more about how to find them in the wild, and good conservation practices for when you do.

Listen to LNP | LancasterOnline Podcasts on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite streaming platform. Make sure to subscribe for new episodes!