(WWJ) - While Michigan is known for its apple and cherry harvest, most of the state's residents are unaware that another "tropical" fruit native to the area is coming into season.
It's called pawpaw and its the largest edible fruit that grows on trees throughout North America -- and it can found here in Southern Michigan, if you look close enough.
Also known as the Michigan banana, false banana, pawpaw apple, poor man's banana or the white plum, it maybe America’s best tasting and almost forgotten delicacy, Michigan State University stated.
The fruit is green in color and kidney-shaped, varying in size from a large berry to a small baked potato. Those who have eaten pawpaw describe the inner yellow-orange flesh as custardy and tropical-tasting, with flavor similar to crossing a mango with a banana.
Pawpaw grows on trees in a range that encompasses 26 states east of the Mississippi, from Michigan to New Orleans. The fruit was once so abundant in Southeast Michigan, the Paw Paw River and the village of Paw Paw were named after it.
The fruit might have been largely forgotten today, but the in past, it was widely-known and popular among many prominent Americans.
According to MSU, President George Washington's favorite dessert was chilled pawpaws and Thomas Jefferson planted pawpaw trees at Monticello. Explorers Lewis and Clark ate pawpaws during their journey out west when other supplies ran out.
Native Americans ate them for centuries, long before European settlers came to the Americas.
Devon Mihesuah, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and a professor at the University of Kansas, told the Guardian that Indigenous people cultivated pawpaw trees not only for eating, but also making rope or twine from the bark and using the seeds to make a shampoo for treating lice.
“Pawpaws were an integral part of tribes’ diets,” Mihesuah said. Some even found a way around the fruit’s notoriously short shelf life: the Iroquois people reportedly pounded and dried the flesh into a kind of fruit leather.
You'll have to forage for the fruit if you want to take a bite, experts say. Pawpaws aren't found in your local Meijer or Kroger store, although some select farmer's markets may carry them. Buyers at the Farmington Farmer's Market say some vendors have sold the fruit and seeds in the past.
Pawpaws bruise easily and perish quickly making them unsuitable for shipping. They only come into season for a short amount of time, typically a couple weeks September with a sight over lap at the end of August or early October.
If you pick pawpaw before it is ripe, it'll turn into mush. When picked while ripe, it can be kept refrigerated for up to three weeks, MSU stated.
The pulp of the pawpaw does keep well in the freezer, making pawpaw ice cream and milkshakes popular choices to make. Small amounts of the pawpaw puree can be bought online, though you should act fast if you come across it -- the fruit is popular and sells quickly!