Haven't i read that they freeze well? If you have a lot you could sell them.

Franktank,
Sell the kids or the pawpaws? (grin)

ScottFSmith,
Some taste preference change with hormones while you are growing up. I read some research a few years ago on this. For instance very few children will drink coffee except with lots of milk and sugar before they reach adolescence. I grew up drinking coffee as a kid, but did not like it black until I was in college. Similarly, many women who love coffee cannot stand the taste or smell during pregnancy while their hormones are in an uproar.

Similarly broccoli, spinach, collards, etc, are often an acquired taste of adulthood. Research suggests that the sensitivity to bitterness may be genetic as well. Some children can detect bitterness in dilute concentrations that adults cannot taste at all.

You are right about bitter taste and poisons. Alkaloid compounds give many foods their bitter taste, and many alkaloids are poisonous. If you were lost in the woods trying to survive of food collected from the wild, your sense of taste is a very good predictor of what is safe to eat. If a food is sweet, it is almost always safe to eat, and the more bitter the taste the less likely it is to be safe to eat.

Even most wild mushrooms taste bad if they are poisonous. The problem with eating wild mushrooms is that people often mix them with sauces and other things that disguise the bad taste of poisonous mushrooms.

Greg

Well, I gave some unwanted ones to my 3 girls last year, and they loved them, but they are chickens, LITERALLY. My five year old boy, however, doesn't like them, he's a springer spaniel. Only kids I have.

I am Sam
Sam I am

That Sam-I-am!
That Sam-I-am!
I do not like that Sam-I-am!

Do you like
green eggs and ham?
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.

Would you like them
here or there?

I would not like them
here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.

I do not like
green eggs and ham .
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

Would you like them in a house?
Would you like them with a mouse?

I do not like them
in a house.
I do not like them
with a mouse.
I do not like them
here or there.
I do not like them
anywhere.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.

Would you eat them
in a box?
Would you eat them
with a fox?

Not in a box.
Not with a fox.
Not in a house.
Not with a mouse.
I would not eat them
here or there.
I would not eat them anywhere.
I would not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

My kids liked them and enjoyed sharing them among their friends as a kind of novelty.
They took them to school, and it was kind of like a Fear Factor thing. I wouldn't say they eagerly anticipated their arrival every year, but they never wasted them. I think they were put off by all the skin and seeds for a small amount of pulp. Same with persimmons.

On a related note, I once got a note from my son's teacher instructing me not to let him share bulbs of garlic with his friends. We had to check pockets from that time on.

Brook

"a Fear Factor thing"

My son would take the nearly transparent, black-seed-filled, ridged pod of pulp from Akebia fruit to school and tell the other kids at lunch that it was a "giant tick-eating death worm." And then eat it of course.

(The seeds are tick size and shape.)

The acorn, the tree, you know the saying.

One thing about paw paws and the "bitterness" if you will -- you will find that most of that off flavor is in the skin and the layer of greenish cells right under the skin. If you remove that, you will have a lot less of the aftertaste.

Scott -- scroll a bit down from the original post in the link below, and you will find a recipe for Paw Paw blondies that I came up with by adapting a Martha Stewart recipe. Bake up a batch of those and tell me your kids won't eat them, I dare you!

Frank -- paw paws freeze really well. I leave the seeds in mine, because I find it a tedious job to remove them and would rather do it a few at a time as I use them, but some people take them out before they freeze the pulp.

Here is a link that might be useful: Paw Paw recipe thread from a prior year.

scott- if you are willing to ship some, id love to buy some from you. let me know. tx.

Easiest and quickest way to turn kids into pawpaw fans is to serve them up some pawpaw smoothies. Use a milk base and a sweetener for a thick tasty shake. No mistaking the pawpaw flavor in one of those.

Kids naturally are intrigued by pawpaws in the woods and are probably more tolerant in taste preference when they are introduced to them there. They are intrigued in general by native edible fruit found in the wild. If that is not an option, then at least make the introduction at the tree and straight off the branch, not in the kitchen.

I can't even get my kids to eat raspberries and blueberries.
I was going to suggest smoothies too. You could look up some different recipes for banana smoothies and use pawpaw instead.
Here's one from Allrecipes that has frozen strawberries and yogurt in it. I'd add some sugar though.

Here is a link that might be useful: Groovie Smoothie

Dennis, just wanted you to know I made the Pawpaw blondie recipe last night and it was a hit.

I don't have pawpaws, so used ripe peach pulp. I am going to try the recipe with mango.

The recipe has been added to my permanent collection. I took your suggestion for nuts and tossed a handful of pecans over the top of the batter before I put it in the oven. Good suggestion.

Thanks for sharing the recipe

I liked paw paws as a kid, picked wild, but I haven't had them since. The botanical garden has an enormous tree... wonder who I need to talk to about getting one to try next year?

I agree with gonebananas, but I don't think it's just kids that are more open to new flavors when picked wild. Adults, too, seem to be in a more open mindset about it, if you can get them to try wild things at all.