Pursuing Persimmons
Diana Reynolds Roome
November/December Food Section, San Francisco Magazine Homemade
A persimmon is a conundrum: gelatinous and grainy, sweet and tart, crisp or mushy, eastern and western. Adored by some, snubbed by others. And like mushrooms that taste so much better when they exude the flavor of the damp field where you discovered them, persimmons are most delectable when you behold them first on the tree. They blaze their potential among leaves that flap like baby elephants’ ears in an autumn breeze. After the leaves fall, they glow like hot coals against a high blue sky. A friend’s mother insists they even have ear-appeal: “It’s music to hear the dropping of the immature fruit,” she says.
So even if your supermarket is bursting with them, it’s best to become a sleuth for persimmons. Neighbors’ backyards, suburban walks, and country drives may yield a supply to buy or beg. Abandoned trees may offer up their foison for free. If a co-worker brings a bulging bag into the office begging for relief from her glut, don’t refuse. My usual supplier, whose tree stands on the corner of my nearest cross street in Mountain View, puts out a notice just before Thanksgiving each year. A quarter for one glossy fuyu means a dollar buys enough to decorate a windowsill until I get around to turning them into a pudding.
Then the question is, will I? Or will they become bread, cake, cookies, soup or even ice cream? Few cookbooks mention persimmons, but friends’ grannies often harbor secret recipes. Or let the fruit suggest its own transformation. When frozen whole and the top sliced off, a persimmon is a ready-made sorbet in its own garnet dish to be eaten with cream or sake.
The moment of inspiration may depend on type. There are around 1,000 persimmon varieties all told, but those we see in California are almost all of Japanese origin. (The American persimmon is more favored by pigs than humans, but its hardy nature makes it good as rootstock.) The squat fuyu, seen most often in farmers markets, is crisp and delicious eaten fresh like an apple. (New fuyu varieties just emerging on the market promise to start the season sooner than the traditional early October to late November.) The taller, pointed hachiya is trickier but maybe more versatile: astringent when immature, rich and date-like when ripe. When the skin starts to lose its gloss, hachiya comes into its own as an ingredient for baking. Experienced Asian shoppers examine the calyx to judge maturity, as this determines how they will use the fruit.
Persimmons hang on the trees right through the winter solstice, but by then my culinary sleuth is off after some other scent. True, persimmon pulp can be successfully frozen and used when needed, but the fruit is best as edible art that comes but once a year. Like other creatures of inspiration, their moment is ripe only when they are.
-Diana Reynolds Roome