They are ready to pick/eat when they look like an over ripe banana. In fact they even have a banana taste to them. When they're ripe the insides will look like custard. You can eat them just as they are or make pawpaw bread. I use the same recipe as for zucchini bread, just sub pawpaws for the zucchini. There's a big pawpaw festival at Lake Snowdon in Albany, Ohio Sept. 13-15 and they have all sorts or things, pawpaw beer (lots of pawpaw beer!), chilli,bread,candy,ice cream etc.