What do you do with a persimmon tree?

[Bobandpeni]

I have a persimmon tree. It grows and fruits like a weed. My family hates it. I tried the fruit a couple years ago and it tastes great…for a second and then YUCK!!!

Any suggestions on persimmon uses?

[zone7a]

Is this an astringent persimmon? You may just have to wait more time for it to ripen and lose its astringency. If it is an american persimmon, the texture may have to be mushy before it is palatable. It you’d prefer a firmer texture you can graft over it with an Asian persimmon

[PatapscoMike]

What zone 7a said. I have a few wild ones too, and each one seems to be perfectly ripe and delicious for about a day before it starts to rot. When they are perfectly ripe the flavor is magical, but it’s a tough fruit to deal with because of the small harvest window.

[007]

Some wild American persimmons won’t lose astringencey.

[SubmarinePete]

I had a large persimmon tree that was here when I purchased the property a few years ago. I tried the fruits over the past couple years and none of them were any good. Based on its location I’m pretty sure it’s a wild tree. Earlier this spring I cut the top and all the branches off and grafted on about 12 scions of different named varieties. No point having a fruit tree that doesn’t produce good fruit in my opinion.

[CRhode]

@Bobandpeni

Any suggestions on persimmon uses?

Yes.

Persimmons, 2019

TL;DRI: Some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. There’s a reason recipes can’t be copyrighted. That’s because plagiarism is a time-honored tradition in cooking. Take, for example, this traditional (old fashioned, Hoosier favorite) Indiana Persimmon Pudding recipe: o Indiana Persimmon Pudding Recipe: How to Make It | Taste of Home I’m betting that it’s very similar to a recipe purportedly published scandalously by the New York Times that also called for an exotic ingredie…

… but, to your question about how to treat bad-tasting persimmons, I can only say I don’t know. How big is the fruit? Did you pick it, or did it fall? Was there frost? ISTR that my family’s American persimmon tree dropped most of its fruit after the first freeze/frost, and we picked up what hadn’t splattered. The tree was quite tall, but we managed to shake down some of what didn’t drop. The grass cushioned the fall. The fruit was quite soft. When ripe, it had a purple haze on the skin and was sweet, eaten out of hand.

[Lucky_P]

@CRhode - the ‘frost’ thing, while often quoted, doesn’t hold.
Most of my grafted American persimmon cultivars - as well as the majority of wild natives growing in the vicinity have ripened and dropped all their fruit long before I ever get a frost, much less a freeze here in southern KY. If I waited for a frost… I’d never get to eat any American persimmons.

I’ve encountered a few(rare) American persimmons that are just ‘spitters’… at no time do they ever taste good, on or off the tree, at any stage of ripeness/rottenness.