Hunting The Perfect American Persimmon
True berries and obsession
Oh the persimmon has her foreign counterparts, Hachiya and Fuyu, and of course they are succulent, trim, and have that hot little accent, but the American persimmon is one of a kind, sort of the saw blade painted with a kountry landscape, kitsch, and probably more closely related to running off with the circus than a fine dining car on the Orient Express.
It's not like there aren't persimmon trees in other parts of the state. My neighbor has a beauty, in fact I covet it. It is tall and gorgeous, maybe one of the largest I have seen, but it isn't the same. In southern Indiana it is the culture that goes along with the persimmon. It's the paw paws, maple syrup, grits, ham and beans, and fried biscuits with apple butter. It's possum and sweet potato dinners and wood-burning stoves. It's all the things I hated about Indiana growing up but am intensely intrigued by now, albeit in a driving by a fatal crash sort of way.
All fatality aside, a good persimmon dessert will leave you in a drool sleep on the couch dreaming the dream of possum and raccoons. Of beating them to the little tannic and orange fires of Zeus, a rare true berry, pulpy and sweet when they finally become ripe enough to eat rather then their typical docket of pucker and gag.
The persimmon likes to flimflam you. It may look ripe and mushy, but when you bite into one it grabs you by the uvula and pulls. It doesn't let go either, truthfully, it holds on like a spring leech after a bloodless winter.
It is an accomplishment worthy of a diploma, this gathering of the ripe fruits, because somehow the animals know too, just like they know the night the sweet corn is ready, and if you went out to that persimmon tree on that night, the night they know, you might find it is like a barrel full of monkeys. A tree full of nocturnal varmints having a hoedown, all drunk and giddy on your persimmons.
You are thinking of fighting them for it, a barroom brawl, but instead you turn and walk back home, you walk back home because you realize she is a good mistress, the persimmon, and is not exclusive but whimsical, indeed, the very trait that keeps you coming back to her.
Tom's Persimmon Tips
Chocolate Persimmon Muffins
Serves 12
1 pound American persimmon pulp, or Hachiya pulp
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 1/2 cup AP flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.
Read a previous farm report from Tom: What I Know About Eggs
