Every September for the last 25 years, thousands of people have descended on a field in southeast Ohio to celebrate North America's largest edible native tree fruit: the pawpaw. With custard-yellow flesh that tastes like a cross between a mango and a banana, pawpaws are eaten raw, worked into sauces and chutneys, or brewed into beer at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival, a celebration of both the fruit's flavor and its history in Appalachia.
This year, more people than ever before came to learn about the plant, crowding around a cooking demonstration to watch local chefs craft a pawpaw salsa and even buying seedlings to plant in their backyards. A few dozen gathered under a white tent to hear Brian Koscho, an Ohio-based artist and creator of an Appalachian history podcast, talk about the Indigenous roots of the plant. Pawpaws, he said, have an "impact both here in this area, but also far, far beyond."
