Paw Paw has arrived (it's not papaya!)

I have been at Capo13 for about two and a half years now and have stumbled upon this flavor tag numerous times and wondered what it is.  Even in all this time here there is still a fairly large sized box of flavor tags that I have not yet had the opportunity to taste.  We have made so many flavors in the last (almost) 11 years and not all of them are possible to bring out every year.  There just are not enough days in a year!!

Anyways, I have seen the Paw Paw tag numerous times while searching for other labels and wondered what this strange fruit could be like and today when we got our fruit delivery I finally got to see some!!  To start I will say they are far from the prettiest fruit I have seen in our kitchen but they are not the ugliest either.  They are kind of a drab brown on the outside and are kidney shaped.  They smell amazingly sweet and I can't wait until the kitchen whips them into some tasty sorbetto so I can get my first taste. 

After doing a little bit of wiki reading I found it is related to the Cherimoya which we had here last summer.  The Cherimoya is also known as a custard apple and tastes very much like custard and apple.  The paw-paw is very similar. The paw paw is the largest indigenous fruit in North America.  They have a wide range, growing from Ontario to Florida and as far west as Texas. 

And this is what they look like with foliage:

Stop in and try something new!!!