When
people hear the word persimmon, if they know about it at all, they
usually think of the fruit you find in the produce department of the
supermarket. That species (
Diospyros
kaki),
native to eastern Asia, has a plum-sized fruit that usually lacks much
flavor by the time it gets to the US. Can you believe that there is a
much better substitute, possibly growing just outside your back door?
The American persimmon,
Diospyros
virginiana, is found from New York to Florida and then
west to Texas, primarily east of the Mississippi river. Our persimmon
is a
tree 40 to 100 feet tall (the
record tree is from Wabash County Illinois at 135 ft.). When mature it
has deeply furrowed bark that forms a
checkered
pattern. The
leaves are simple and alternate.
The species is dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female
trees. The
flowers are urn-shaped, with
4
floral parts (sepals and petals). The male flowers have 16
stamens and the female flowers 8 sterile stamens plus the ovary. The
fruit is a
berry with four prominent sepals.
The
fruits of the persimmon are edible - but that statement must be
qualified! Before the fruits ripens, they are hard and their color is
green
to
yellowish.
Although many books say the fruit is only edible after a frost, I have
seen some of the fruits on the tree ripen before the first frost. And
often the fruits ripen at very different times on one tree. There are
many clues that tell you the
fruit
is ripe and ready to eat:
. it pulls away easily from the branch
. the 4-lobed calyx can be easily
removed from the fruit
. the fruit changes color to a peach or
orange
. the fruit is soft to the touch and the
skin peels off easily
. the fruit tastes sweet
The
last feature is the most important. If your mouth puckers when sampling
a fruit, it is not ripe! The transformation from the unripe, astringent
to the ripe, delicious sugary fruit is truly amazing - the two forms of
persimmon fruits are as different as day and night. So if someone told
you they once tried persimmon and it was terrible, they probably
sampled an unripe fruit.
Gathering
Persimmons
As
mentioned above, persimmons ripen at different times in different
places and even differently on the same tree. This year (2012) in
Southern Illinois, we had ripe persimmons in late September to early
October, at least four weeks before the first frost, but this could
have been related to the drought we experienced the previous summer. A
sure sign that the persimmons are ripe is the presence of the fruits on
the ground around the tree. The deer in my yard are the first to notice
this, so their presence there alerts me that persimmon season is upon
us.
One can collect the persimmons from the ground, but for
these I gather only clean, undamaged ones. When ripe they are very
soft, so often when these fall the impact causes them to split open (I
don't use these). The second way to collect persimmons is to put a
large tarp under the tree and then give the tree a good shake (with a
step ladder I can get up a bit higher in the tree to shake it). The
persimmons that drop are ripe and ready to eat, and they stay clean
when hitting the tarp. And the third way is to use a ladder and pick
the fruits directly from the branches. But again, be aware that only
fruits that pull away easily from the branch are ripe.
Extracting
and Freezing the Pulp
Now
that you have your buckets full of ripe persimmons, you should begin
the process of extracting the pulp as quickly as possible. If you leave
these ripe fruits setting around for days, you will have lots of fruit
flies and some nicely fermented mush. I fill the
sink
with water and wash the outsides of the fruits. Eliminate any
fruits that have
dark spots and hard dark areas near the calyx.
Bear in mind that the fruits
vary
tremendously in size
from tree to tree. The larger fruits seem to have more pulp as a
percentage of their total volume than the small fruits. Remove the dry,
dark calyx and place the fruits in a
food
mill.
These mills can be purchased online or at many different stores that
sell kitchen appliances (mine cost ca. $30.00). Before purchasing the
mill, I extracted the pulp using a collander and a potato masher. This
works well, but it takes more "elbow grease!" Actually, the collander
method results in a better quality pulp because it does not remove the
seed coats. But if you use the food mill carefully, you can avoid
grinding the seeds and get a lot of pulp quickly. If properly ripe, the
persimmon fruits should easily crush into a slimy mush (sounds
terrible, but it's not!). By filling my two quart food mill, I usually
end up with
two cups of pulp.
Persimmon
fruits may have different amounts of water depending upon how long they
have been hanging around on the tree. For those that are drier, you may
want to add a bit of water while processing them through the food mill.
I place the mill in a square pyrex casserole dish and use a plastic
spatula to scrape the pulp off the bottom of the mill grate. Measure
out
two cups of pulp and place this in
a plastic freezer container. I usually have lots of
yogurt
containers
around, so I find these work well. I label the containiner and place
the pulp in my freezer. The pulp keeps very well for up to a year in my
chest type freezer. Bear in mind that self-defrosting freezers, as are
found associated with many refrigerators, will not work as well because
they go through daily freeze/thaw cycles and food does not keep as long
this way.
A Recipe for
Persimmon Pudding
Persimmon pudding with vanilla frozen yogurt
.
3/4 stick of butter or margarine
.
1 1/2 cups sugar
.
3 large eggs
.
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk plus 2 oz of milk (totals 14 oz or 1 3/4
cup)
.
2 cups persimmon pulp
.
2 cups all purpose flour
.
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
.
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
.
1/4 teaspoon baking soda [optional - 1/4 teaspoon of dry ginger or 1/2
teaspoon of fresh]
Cream
the softened butter and sugar. Add eggs and mix well. Add spices, soda,
persimmon pulp, mix. Add milk and mix. At this stage I find it useful
to use my electric mixer. It does a nice job of making the mixture nice
and smooth. Slowly add the flour, mixing as you go. When the batter is
smooth, pour into a greased 8 1/2 X 11 inch pyrex baking pan. Bake in a
slow oven (300 degrees F) for 1 hour 20 minutes, or until knife
inserted into the middle of the pudding comes out clean. Can be served
warm or cold. When the pudding is warm, I like it with a little whipped
cream, vanilla frozen yogurt or even just some milk. Enjoy!
Diospyros Trivia
We have just one persimmon (
Diospyros)
in the eastern US. But this is actually a large genus with over 550
species worldwide (photos of other
Diospyros
species on PhytoImages
HERE).
The genus is especially speciose in Central America, Africa,
Madagascar, and the Indo-Pacific region. Here are some other uses of
various species in the genus
Diospyros
(thanks to "The Plant Book" by Mabberley).
D. abyssinica
(tropical and South Africa) - tool handles and shuttles for weaving
sisal
D. blancoi
(Central Malesia) - mabola or butterfruit are prized and eaten
D. decandra
and D. peregrina
(southeast Asia) - topiary and bonsai in Buddhist temples of Thailand
D. digyna
(Central America, naturalized in Asia) - black sapote fruit
D. ebenum
(India, Sri Lanka) - the ebony wood of commerce
D. kaki
(Eastern Asia) - Japanese persimmon, Chinese date. Dried fruits used
and it's also a source of sugar. Juice from the green fruits used to
waterproof paper!
D. lotus
(Asia) - fruits eaten fresh, dried, or bletted
D. malabarica
(tropical Asia) - sticky fruit used to caulk boats
D. marmorata
(Sri Lanka, Andamans) - the ornamental and prized marblewood or zebra
wood (with streaked figures)
D.
melanoxylon (India, Sri Lanka) - leaves used to make
cigarette paper
D.
mespiliformis (tropical Africa) - wood used for
construction, fruit is edible, and it's a medicinal plant. Wow!
D. mollis
(Thailand) - fruit a source of a black dye for silk
D. mweroensis
(central and southeastern Asia) - a fish poison and anti-bilharzia
agent.
D. quaesita
(Sri Lanka, Andamans) - Calamander or Coromandel wood (grey-brown with
black bands) used in Sheraton furniture
D. viginiana
(eastern US) - in addition to pudding, also can be used for bread and
muffins, beer and brandy. In the Civil War, the hard seeds were used as
buttons and as a coffee substitute. The fruits can also be used to make
a syrup and ... ink! The wood can be used to make gunstocks and
golf-club heads.
Links to more
on Persimmon
Persimmonpudding.com.
This series of pages goes into great detail about everything persimmon!
Shows an innovative way (Fiona McAllister of North Carolina) to remove
the pulp from the seeds and skin using a laundry bag!
Wikipedia.org.
The page focuses a lot on Chinese persimmon (
Diospyros kaki),
but does discuss
D.
virginiana a bit too.
Last changed: Saturday, December 20, 2014