slo’s THURSDAY 1/25 poll - Persimmon 🍅

[georgina]

Heard the word, never had one, not very interested. Around here people are excited when out hiking in the woods to find pawpaws, which apparently have a somewhat tropical fruit taste.

 

[amcnj]

My mother was a fan so we had them seasonally. I only remember eating them as a fruit. I probably last bought one a couple of years ago, as since then the ones I saw didn’t look too good. When ripe they are very sweet.

 

[BayouQueen]

My MIL had a persimmon tree and made cookies. I didn't care for them. She made other things, too, which I can't remember and never tasted.

 

[ronandannette]

I decided to look up what they taste like, and accidentally found the name of the other variety:

Persimmons have a mild, delicately sweet flavor. Fuyu persimmons are sweet unripened but grow even more richly sweet as they ripen, with slight cinnamon undertones. While horribly astringent when unripe, ripened Hachiya persimmons are intensely sweet with almost a honey-like flavor. (https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/)

I tried them once, many years ago, when my Ddad ran across them somewhere and brought them home as a novelty. Not sure if it was a good one, bad one, over or under ripe as there was no basis for comparison. It was a pretty colour but if memory serves, the inside was pulpy, sweet and completely bland. Nothing I’d ever buy again and I can’t fathom it adding anything to baked goods.

Interesting info about the unripe ones being astringent. As a kid, parsimonious was a vocabulary word we learned and it means “stingy with money, frugal in a negative sense”. I wonder if the two things are related?

 

[Danicat77]

I love persimmons!! My favorite fruit, but in the northern Midwest they are extremely hard to find. Costco had them this past fall for about 5 weeks, and so cheap!! I kept going back and buying them! Normally if the regular grocery store has them they’re around $3 for one, and I was getting a bag of about 7-8 for $5.99 I think. Fuyu are the ones you can eat even if not as soft; hachiya have to be very soft/ripe or they still seem ‘fuzzy’ when you eat them. I usually eat them raw, but tried a baked one where I had a bunch and it wasn’t bad!

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I have had persimmon ice cream, and some kind of pudding. I don't seek it out, but it is pretty decent. There is a little town south of Bloomington that has a "Persimmon Festival" every year in September. It has been several years since I have been, but it was a lot of fun.