Most Americans seem stymied by persimmons and just don't know what to make of a fruit that shows up when self-respecting fruits of Summer shut down for the season. Leaves fall, trees become bare, and lo! The persimmon tree brazenly produces its shimmering orange orbs, likened by some writers to Christmas ornaments or round glowing lanterns hanging on the trees' skeletal limbs. There's something almost magical and akin to a mystical vision when one is surprised by a persimmon tree spotlighted by the slanting rays of the afternoon autumn sun.
There's something almost magical and akin to a mystical vision when one is surprised by a persimmon tree spotlighted by the slanting rays of the afternoon autumn sun.
When I was a child, we had a persimmon tree, a scruffy looking specimen, in the pasture next to a pecan tree towering over it. Most of the year, the persimmon tree was insignificant, dwarfed by the pecan. Then came Fall's frosts, and my father would scamper out to collect the fallen fruit. Since I followed him around like a pup on his heels, I witnessed him slurping up persimmon mush as if it were nectar of the gods. He withheld it from me, he said, because of treacherous seeds and because it wouldn't be good for my tender young tummy. I wanted one of those persimmons about as much as Eve yearned for her infamous apple, so I slunk off on my own for a persimmon feast one Fall day before he, the keeper of forbidden fruit, had his first of the season. I chose a particularly pretty specimen to sample. Ewwwww. Didn't try one again for years!
The wild persimmon tree in our pasture was the native American variety, Diospyros Virginiana, which produces smallish orange to dark red fruit throughout the Southeastern Gulf Coast, including states up to Pennsylvania and Illinois. The horticultural name Diospyros comes from the Latin meaning "fruit of the gods," but many Southerners think along the lines of the movie title The Gods Must Be Crazy and don't bother fooling with the fruit except for children who love to pelt each other with persimmons, which are good chunking size and hurt just enough when green and splat with a disgusting mess, a joy of childhood, when ripe. Native Americans, however, respected the food value of the fruit, drying it to insure a constant supply and instructing Virginia colonists in preparation of persimmon bread made from persimmon pulp mixed with crushed corn, an item which should've made it to the traditional Thanksgiving feast but didn't for the majority of us, evidence of general mistrust of the fruit. The mistrust is based primarily on the fruit's inedible yuckiness prior to ripening, the stage at which yours truly made its acquaintance. Ripe native persimmons must be handled gingerly since they squash easily when at their soft peak of perfection. Besides having to be savvy about handling techniques and signs of ripeness, including wrinkled, darkening skin and softness to the touch, cooks find the fruit tedious to prepare because of numerous flat seeds—the seeds of which my papa was wary. Further evidence proves his gastrointestinal fears were founded on fact as well. The skin of wild persimmons defies digestive juices as evidenced by "waddy balls" produced by pasture animals who eat persimmons.
The mistrust is based primarily on the fruit's inedible yuckiness prior to ripening, the stage at which yours truly made its acquaintance.
The balls are similar to large hairballs like the ones my cat daintily produces with a resounding "Ack!" I certainly can't fault my father for trying to avoid the problem with me - Ack! Our native fruit is nevertheless valued by many and is cultivated in some regions despite the trees' quirkiness. According to a horticultural column in the Clarion Ledger, the plant is a quixotic bloomer and has gender identity problems: some trees have only female flowers, some have both male flowers and female flowers, and some have hermaphrodite flowers with both male and female floral parts in the same blossom. Kinky, yes? And, quality of fruit varies drastically from tree to tree.
Realizing the enigmatic nature of our own little natives, as delectable as they are when ripe, it's no small wonder persimmons found in supermarkets usually aren't native but are instead larger Oriental varieties.
Realizing the enigmatic nature of our own little natives, as delectable as they are when ripe, it's no small wonder persimmons found in supermarkets usually aren't native but are instead larger Oriental varieties.
Originating in China a millennia ago, the persimmon, a member of the ebony family, was granted status in ancient woodblocks as well as paintings and sculptures. Korea and Japan found the Chinese fruit tempting and began cultivation some 1,300 years ago, but it wasn't until the nineteenth century that western civilization had its first bites of the luscious Oriental fruit, when other Mediterranean countries began cultivation.
The two prominent varieties among the fruit’s hundreds of variations are the Fuyu and the Hachiya, both of which have easily digestible skins (no hairballs). Fuyus, sometimes called "apple persimmons," have a texture described as "silky" and "crisp" at the same time. They stay firm even when ripe, at which time they conveniently fall off the tree with a plop, not a squish. Although this variety has little astringency, it, like all varieties, isn't palatable ‘til ripe. It's the degree of unpalatability that separates the men from the boys and the tomato-shaped Fuyu from the acorn-shaped Hachiya. Both are a richly burnished orange, so it's vital to distinguish by shape. Confusing an unripe Hachiya for a ripe Fuyu causes shock. Full of tannin, unripe Hachiyas bring new meaning to the word bitter with a pucker power that makes lips shrink to the size of a punctuation mark (.). Writer Catherine Costa says only "the Jaws of Life" can pry the lips apart after a green Hachiya experience, so, buyer beware: know thy persimmons prior to purchase, prior to chomping down. The Hachiya is ready to eat when its skin is wrinkly and its flesh soft to the point of mushiness. The squeamish call the jiggly meat of a ripe hachya "slimy," while devotees lovingly compare its texture to melt-in-your-mouth sorbet or custard. The sweet taste of both varieties has been likened to ultimate apricot or maximum mango and other fruity superlatives, so it's worth getting the courage up to become familiar with cultivated persimmons while you can buy them.
Once you've thrown caution to the wind and have bought some, you may have to ripen them since supermarkets buy them green to insure they're not shapeless blobs of gush after shipping and after customers pinching and poking them. To ripen, place them in a brown paper bag with a banana or apple. (No, I don't know why they're not satisfied being by themselves or why the company of their brethren won't suffice while confined in a bag; maybe it's just another persimmon quirk.) Once ripe, preparation options are numerous. Minimalists eat them raw, slicing off the top and spooning out the innards. Most cooking recipes call for pulp. To change a persimmon from its round, saucy self to pulp, pour boiling water over a bowl of fruit after removing stems, let stand for two minutes, and then separate pulp from skin. If fully ripened, you can simply scrape the pulp off the skin, or you may prefer to peel the fruit, dice it, and pulverize in a food processor. If you don't feel like going through the process of processing and anxiety over ripeness, you can order pulp from Dymple's Delight, Rt. 4, Box 53, Mitchell, Indiana 47446. Pulp morphs into cookies, puddings, sauces, glazes, salad dressings, cream pies, bread, soufflés, and more. Additionally, pulp can be frozen as can fruit that's so ripe the window of opportunity for preparation is about to close. Persimmons, appearing in complex sauces and chutneys, are among the previously untrendy fruits that have been given a rebirth as an ingredient for adventurous gourmet cooking. More and more often the word "Kaki," Francais for persimmon as well as the scientific name of Asian persimmons, appears on menus of chi-chi restaurants.
When they're so full of pulp potential, it's a shame we often think of our native wild persimmon as a sort of trash fruit suited only for the consumption of animals like the possum and the raccoon, both of which love the fruit and succumb to its temptation. Lured by hunger for the juicy ripe persimmon, they scramble up among bare tree limbs and become sitting ducks, so to speak, for coon and possum hunters who know exactly where to look for them in the otherwise fruitless landscape. We, on the other hand, are generally content to let persimmons fall where they may.
