At this time of year as plants recover from the excesses of Summer, Pawpaws come into their own.
As the Passionfruit season passes -- and this year was more passion fruitful than others as the harvest is still bountiful -- the pawpaws are beginning to form on the cute little trees that bear them.
For the moment I have to wait on my own plants for the fruit to develop further but I can get good pawpaw fruits at the markets now each Sunday.
There is nothing like it: nothing tastes or is textured like a pawpaw. And to grow your own is a special activity: a hobby, a fruitful hobby.
All you need do is -- after you have moved to the sub tropics for the express purpose of pawpaw cultivation -- once you have consumed the flesh of a pawpaw, dry out the seeds and plant them. You'll get male and female plants so cull the fellas back to one. As for the ladies, you can never have too many pawpaws growing. To increase your chances of success, use seeds from pawpaws growing in your neighborhood. (Want to know more about growing pawpaws? Go here: Growing Papaya From Seed).
I prefer to play the gender lottery from seed rather than rely on bisexual plants you can buy from nurseries. The bisexuals may be easier to grow but they don't taste as good as the ladies.
A home grown pawpaw, picked fresh and eaten while still warm and firm from the tree beats the shop bought ones, bruised and mushed as they so often are, any day. So long as you can harvest ahead of the fruit bats you are laughing.
While you can do a lot of useful things with pawpaw -- make an ointment from it, use its leaves in tea as a powerful medicine -- in domestic consumption it is best eaten sliced and raw.
I also like it blended with yogurt as a smoothie. You gotta love the colour of such a drink: very exotic.
Since I have encouraged several plants into being I'm looking forward to experimenting with my pawpaw culinary options. For low carbers, pawpaw is way low -- almost as low as the berries I allow myself: among the few fruits I eat.
I also drink green tea flavoured with papaya leaf. The papaya/pawpaw leaf may have therapeutic credentials in its own right but I steep my Madura Green Tea with Papaya Leaf on cold water and always keep litres of the stuff in the refrigerator. It takes about 5 hours to flavour up in its cold state. Brewing on cold water serves to soften any bittering that you get when tea brewed on boiling water goes cold.
I'm not attracted to other flavours of green tea but I engorge on this one for the taste of it.
It has become my favorite day time sip.
For an aficionado of the beverage, such as I, I've used this green tea in cooking and in blends to make lassi -- a yogurt* drink . I've also discovered that if you want to make your green tea zing in the glass, pour it out from a height as the Moroccans do for their minted teas.
Neat little trick well worth habituating. Makes a more refreshing 'cuppa' -- with its own effervescence.
For the philosophical I'll leave you with meanings to spare:
The prettiest paw paw are the emptiest inside.
*A yogurt note: While I can make my own yogurt I'm not so sure if it is that economical to do so. I am absolutely a Greek yogurt man. I eat buckets of the stuff. Can't stand the horrid low fat (extremely high sugar blends) and flavours. So as Greek yogurts go I've eaten my way around the.supermarket. If you can get Chris Greek Yogurt -- go for it. I unfortunately was having supply problems so I'm now using, and loving, Bulla's Greek Yogurt. Much better price too. Don't bother with the rest. Greek yogurt over cubed pawpaw: yum.
