CHAPTER XXVI. WHY NOT 

 GROW PAPAWS, AMERICA'S 

 MOST DELICIOUS FRUIT? 



EATEN by pigs and boys." I shall 

 never forget the surprise and indig- 

 nation with which I read those 

 five words in one of Prof. Asa 

 Gray's textbooks of botany, after 

 his description of the May apple. 

 Although I left Missouri when I was eight 

 years old, I remember well how we boys used to 

 get ahead of the pigs by gathering these plum- 

 shaped fruits and letting them ripen in the barn, 

 buried in hay. Soon they became luscious 

 beyond compare, a feast for epicures. I made 

 up my mind, as I have related in Food and 

 Flavor, that if adults do not relish this fruit 

 they have something to learn from pigs and 

 boys. What would the French do for truffles if 

 the pigs did not locate them for them? 



The American papaw (Asimina triloba) is 

 another underrated fruit the merits of which my 

 fresh childish palate promptly discovered. It 

 grew wild on bushes near my Missouri home 

 and I distinctly recall the thrills I got from its 

 luscious, quasitropical, exotic flavor. I also 

 remember how I was annoyed by the huge seeds, 

 which crowded out just so much of the sweet 

 pulp. 



Then I lost track of the papaw. Often I 

 wondered why none came to market in the cities 



