Pawpaws are best eaten raw, but are also crafted into foods like ice cream and soda. The custard-textured pulp tastes similar to a cross between a banana and mango. Karen Caspary/UTIA
KNOXVILLE — The city celebrates a ubiquitous but largely underappreciated native forest fruit this weekend with the second installment of the Pawpaw and Wildcraft Festival.
There will be local food, craft beer and live music as Knoxville joins the list of cities celebrating the eastern North American trees. The event is set for 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30 at Trailhead Beer Market, 1317 Island Home Ave. In South Knoxville.
Knoxville attorney and activist Chris Irwin, one of the principal organizers (along with Joy Grissom and Lenny Zonda), told Hellbender Press to expect an even bigger and better paw-paw-palooza this year. He is a proponent of the tree as a both rural and urban food source for wildlife and humans. Pawpaw grows in the understory, and is actually thriving in most areas as farmland returns to woodlands (it also has a natural toxin that repels deer), but climate change will alter forest types. Either way, Irwin said, it's an underutilized resource that should be better ballyhooed.
The festival features other native plants, wildcrafting discussions, urban and rural gardening, pawpaw fruit sharing and seed swapping. Wildcrafting is the practice of sustainably harvesting uncultivated plants, herbs, roots and fungi from their natural or wild habitats for food, medicine or crafts.
KNOXVILLE — Multiple wildcrafters, seed collectors and general treehuggers — and wild critters — here and throughout the Southern Appalachians are really getting into wild pawpaw trees and their fruit.
Asimina triloba, the American papaw, is native to hardwood forest understories of the eastern United States, including the rich oak, hickory and maple forests of the Appalachians. It can be cultivated on private land or urban food plots, and of course grows richly in area forests. Its fruit is widely described as custard-like in texture.
There is a growing critical mass of pawpaw fans to meet occasionally and swap seed and its Knoxville’s turn to recognize the humble yet mighty local fruit. The first of what is planned to be an annual event is set 6 p.m. Aug. 31 at the Trailhead Beer Market, 1317 Island Home Ave.
Clint Carroll, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, will talk Feb. 27 at McClung Museum about the Cherokee philosophy of the ‘Middle Way.’
KNOXVILLE — A central aspect of Cherokee worldview is ᎠᏰᎵ ᎦᏙᎬ (ayehli gadogv), or “Standing in the Middle,” a philosophy that humans occupy a role in a web of complex interactions between mutually dependent organisms. Standing in the Middle emphasizes the importance of balance and reciprocity in persisting relationships.
A lecture at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 27 at McClung Museum, 1327 Circle Park, Knoxville, will feature Dr. Clint Carroll, who will explore how Standing in the Middle informs ecology, conservation, management practices, epistemology and science communication in the face of unprecedented anthropogenic (human-caused) change.
Light refreshments will be available before the lecture.
Clint Carroll is associate professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, he works closely with Cherokee people in Oklahoma on issues of land conservation and the perpetuation of land-based knowledge and ways of life.
PIGEON FORGE — Learn about the culture and ecology of the Southern Appalachians from a warm hotel and conference center, and then get outside and keep learning during the annual knowledge-fest that is Wilderness Wildlife Week.
This year’s event is set for Jan. 28-Feb. 1 at The Ramsey Hotel and Convention Center, 3230 Parkway in Pigeon Forge.
Come celebrate the natural features, creatures and cultures of the Great Smoky Mountains. This year, we’ll be inviting some of the leading wildlife experts to lead informative discussions with you. Writers, artists, photographers, musicians, biologists and naturalist will entertain and inform. This is a great opportunity to learn and ask questions about nature.
Wilderness Wildlife Week celebrates the abundance of wildlife, variety of plants, trees and wildflowers, and the rich history of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee through a series of classes, seminars, demonstrations, guided hikes, panel discussions and workshops.
