Description
“A perfume so intense it confuses the senses.”
One of North America’s least-known native fruits, the pawpaw deserves a stage of its own. Jessamine chats with historian, writer and citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Devon Mihesuah. Having grown up eating pawpaws, Devon wants pawpaw fruits to be available to Indigenous communities for years to come. To explore a pathway to pawpaw preservation through cultivation, Jessamine speaks with Neal Peterson, a plant geneticist who has spent the last 45 years creating pawpaws for the future.
Topics covered in this episode:
Min 1:00: Jessamine recites her letter to pawpaws
Min: 2:50: Jessamine gives a brief introduction to pawpaw
Min 3:40: Meet Devon Mihesuah
Min 4:40: Devon recounts her pawpaw past and present
Min 6:40: Favorite ways to eat pawpaws
Min 7:45: Role of pawpaws in Choctaw diet
Min 9:15: Cultural knowledge regarding pawpaws
Min 11:40: Foraging wild pawpaw challenges
Min 13:30: Tribes revitalizing pawpaws and indigenous food sovereignty
Min 15:00: Devon describes growing her own pawpaw plants
Min 17:00: Meet Neal Peterson
Min 18:00: Neal recounts his first taste of pawpaw
Min 19:30: Neal describes his research findings and method of past pawpaw breeding
Min 21:30: Neal finds surviving pawpaw trees to begin his cultivation process
Min 24:00: Neal explains the metrics evaluated to obtain his successful cultivars
Min 27:00: Neal praises the rise of pawpaw excitement and compares its future to be similar to blueberries
Learn more about this episode of Fruit Love Letters at www.whetstoneradio.com, on IG and Twitter at @whetstoneradio, and YouTube at /WhetstoneRadio.
Guests: Devon Mihesuah, Neal Peterson
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