Here’s the tree today.
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Wow… thats awesome.
So much great looking fruit.
You are going to have to make persimmon goodies.
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I guess I’ll also take suggestions re “persimmon goodies”! 
Seriously, I’ll take suggestions. Just not doughy desserts.
Persimmon… look around online and youtube… people are making lots of goodies with persimmon pulp.
cookies cakes pies icecream popsicles puddin jams jellies ice cream toppings…
Hmmm. Persimmon hickory nut pie…
Dehydrated ?
@ramv –
Thanks. Those are helpful suggestions. I think I’ll implement a version… I’ve got to address two issues. Understand that I’m thinking out loud here . . . .
- How many fruits can I allow to ripen on the tree, understanding that once they are ripe someone will have to use (e.g., eat) them? Between me, my family and my friends over 2 weeks, maybe we could use 50? It depends hoe they taste. Let’s assume that there are 200 fruits on the tree, though this may be low. That implies that I should leave only ~1/4 on the tree. Of course that means we’d have to use the other ~150 after those 2 weeks, If 25 per week is reasonable, I’d have to store them for 5-6 weeks.
Leaving 1/4 on the tree would give me a chance to compare taste at various degrees of ripeness, including the impact of a November freeze.
- How much can I allow the fruits to ripen and then still store them for >2 weeks in a fridge? I’m imagining that I can’t store fruits that have already become red and soft, at least not for long. I can’t tell now when my fruits will reach that stage (the fruits that I leave on the tree will teach me), they all look bright orange now, and a small few damaged fruits have already ripened, so I’m inclined to think that they are close to ripening on the tree. That means that I should pick them now.
Comments welcome.
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There are some suggestions on the post above and a persimmon bread recipe.
@TNHunter – Almost everything I’ve seen uses Asian persimmons, often non-astringent. Others have noted that heating can reverse the process of de-astringency, so I could actually make tasty fruits inedible.
To be safe, I think I have to limit myself to recipes that work on American persimmons. Of course, I can experiment with small batches.
I picked a lot that were not quite ripe and let them ripen on the counter. They are still very sweet. I had more than I could use and shared with coworkers. I also peeled (or just squeezed out of the skin) and froze the pulp. It’s very good for cooking after being frozen.
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I suggest to try removing the astringency with alcohol or carbon dioxide to see if you can eat some firm fruit or not. I remember all your failures with Prok last year, but I hope that some hybrids are easier to treat than Americans.
No. It was Eureka which is an astringent Asian. But I know that most any astringent persimmon can be preserved this way.
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@k8tpayaso – I know from experience that astringent Americans do not behave like astringent Asians. Specifically, neither CO2 nor ethanol work with Americans.
So now the big question is whether a hybrid behaves like an Asian or an American or both. Until there is direct evidence, I won’t extrapolate from Asians to either Americans or Hybrids.
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Well, I picked 400 fruits today – and it was clearly less than half!!! Above I guessed 200 total but it may be closer to 1000. The lesson: Don’t rely on me for numerical estimates! Most of those 400 that I picked are now in a fridge.
Roughly 40 are now subjects in an experiment. 20 are in a closed plastic tray with a small cup of a ethanol / water solution (i.e., vodka). Another 20 are in an identical closed plastic tray with a small cup of water.
The question is whether the hybrid Kassandra persimmons with the ethanol will become non-astringent any quicker.
p.s. Edit 10/30 – I picked another 400 today, so 800 total. There’s at least 200 still on the tree.
p.p.s. Edit 11/05 – I picked another 200 today, so 1000 total. There’s more on the tree.
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Twig girdlers cut a limb bearing 20 or so fruits out of my Rosseyanka a couple of weeks back… fruits were firm, and not quite to the orange state yet; yellow, but not orange.
I snipped them off, and left them on the front steps in a cardboard box for the next two nights when temps dropped below 32F, then sliced them and ran them through the dehydrator. Minimal to no detectable astringency in the slices, though I’d bet that if I had just tried to eat one fresh off the branch, it would have been astringent.
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FWIW, this fruit was picked a week ago, then ripened in a bag with an apple. I ate it today. I think it could have used one more day – it was still a little hard. But it was not at all astringent. I’ll reserve comment on taste until I’ve tasted a bunch more.
My preliminary take-away is that a fully orange but unripe Kassandra will ripen in about a week if stored at room temperature with a source of a little ethylene.
Note that over 3 years of fruiting, my American variety Prok never really lost astringency. The reason was unclear. Possibly the variety was mislabeled. There was speculation that RI weather or soil conditions were responsible. As more Kassandra fruits ripen with low/no astringency, local conditions seem a less plausible explanation.
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I only have experience with wild american so far…
My sisters large mature trees in full sun location… and the fruit from them seem to loose astringency faster than the fruit from the other wild trees that i harvest from. The fruit from her trees is quite a bit larger… and the flavor is quite rich… which i can only describe as caramel like richness.
My son in law loves persimmons and we eat some together almost every evening. He was blown away by the taste of a nicely ripened chicago hardy fig… but he says my sisters persimmons are better then figs. I have to agree although it is a close match.
All of the other trees that i harvest from are smaller… younger trees… and in locations where they get much less direct sun.
The fruit on them is smaller, clear orange… since they get leas sun the fruit skin remains clear orange … and the pulp inside is clear orange… they have a wonderful persimmon flavor but lack that extra richness that my sisters persimmons have.
I suppose it could be sunshine on the fruit while ripening that gives them that extra richness ? Or perhaps it is just the larger more mature trees ?
The fruit from her trees looses astringency quickly… where the fruit from these smaller trees getting less sun keeps astringency longer.
The fruit from these smaller trees getting less sun… every once in a while i will pick one out and eat it… and be enjoying the flavor with no notice of astringency at all initially… but then wow it comes on near the end and ends up being quite astringent. It is almost like a delayed reaction.
My experiment may be academic. All of the 20 or so fruits that I picked a week ago ripened in a bag at room temperature after about a week. My wife and I ate a dozen or so this morning. They were great - sweet, tasty, non-astringent. No need for CO2 or alcohol or anything other than time.
I’m no foodie, so my descriptions of flavor are lame. I’m not gonna reference honey and caramel. More simply, I’d describe the flavor as roughly equivalent to my Ichi Ki Kei Jiro at its best. The texture is like a ripe tomato. Given the size, the fruit can be eaten like a very large cherry tomato without the potential for explosion and without the seeds. There is no astringency (or, at worst, only the faintest hint).
p.s. Edit 10/30: After 3 days, I sampled one of the persimmons from the container with the ethanol. Note that all of the fruits within are still hard and still orange (not red-orange). The fruit I tasted was still astringent. Therefore, I have no evidence as yet that the ethanol is having an impact.
p.p.s. Edit 11/01: Aftre 5 days, still astringent despite ethanol. . . .
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Is the skin something you eat as well, or do you peel them or otherwise avoid the skin?
I’ve been eating the skin
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