What's a papaw?

I have been admiring the selection of tropical fruit at local grocery stores.  It is just amazing to see the variety of all this foreign (to us) fruit.  Here, they don't just sell mangoes (like they do in Canada), but they sell Calypso mangoes, R2E2 mangoes, Kensington Pride mangoes, Honey Gold mangoes, etc.  They sure know their mangoes.

One fruit that looked appealing was paw paw.  I finally decided to buy it and try it, only to realize that although it smells good, the taste was not to my liking.  It tasted strangely familiar, though.  After doing some research, I found out that paw paw is either the same as or very close to papaya.  I have yet to see papaya in the grocery store, so it seems that when they say paw paw, they mean papaya.

We have experienced a lot of those moments when Australians talk about some new thing which we have never heard of, until we actually see or try it, only to realize that this is the same as ... back home.  It's just that it is called something different in Australia.  Capsicum, for example, is what they call a pepper.  Yes, red capsicum is a red pepper.  What I find confusing is that black pepper (the spice) is called - black pepper!

We are still learning new Australian words, but I am happy to say that these days we may hear an Aussie word that we have not heard before about once a month, while half a year ago, the rate was a new Aussie word at least once a week.