Once they are very ripe and sweet, one of my favorite things to do is to spread some creamy ricotta (whisk or machine-blend with a little cream to make a so-so ricotta better) on grilled or toasted bread, then dollop the persimmon on top.
Theyâre good in salads too, especially with chicories and bitter greens. Kale, persimmon and pomegranate is a classic combination that usually calls for Fuyu persimmons, but I prefer the sweetness of the Hachiya. The texture is much softer with the Hichayas, but I actually prefer that smooth slipperiness with the crisp kale.
I eat a lot of persimmons and get ones with internal dark bruises from time to time. I did look it up before, worried about eating mould. Apparently itâs OK to eat. One of the factors that results in internal browning is oxidation of tannins.
Recently ate a dozen of them in Japan. They have a sign stating the ripeness in numbers.
I love fuyus and eat at least 2 a day during the season. I make Suzanne Goinâs famous persimmon-pomegranate-walnut-arugula salad a couple of times, but mostly I just appreciate them sliced into 8ths and eat out-of-hand. I think they might be my #1 fruit because they are portable (unlike other greats like peaches and raspberries), they donât rot quickly, and they are all good if not great. You can get a mealy apple, a bad peach, or blah berries, but even a not-perfect persimmon is still good.
As for dried, I bought some once at a Korean market. They were quite expensive, and I was unfortunately underwhelmed. They werenât what Iâd hoped; probably an acquired taste or a taste you have to grow up with. Not bad, but I didnât get the prized status.
@maestra , thatâs encouraging! Any suggestions for ripening or knowing when they are ripe? The Japanese patient who gave them to husband says we should hold onto them a bit.
We have a hachiya tree, and every year we dry them. I mean, thereâs only so much persimmon bread and cookies you can make! The traditional (Japanese) method of drying them calls for peeling them whole, then hanging them outside to dry. Eventually they shrivel and look like a chicken drummette, but they get really sweet. Theyâre ready when they yield to gentle pressure but are firm and dry on the outside. Prepared this way theyâre known as âhoshigakiâ, and are a common New Yearâs gift. Making hoshigaki is a PITA.
We slice and dry them in a dehydrator, much like in your photo. Drying either way - hanging for hoshigaki or slicing - requires that the fruits be firm with no soft spots at all. Drying them completely eliminates their astringency, too, no matter how green they originally were.
My favorite with hachiya is freezing wholeâslice the top off and eat like sorbet. With fuyu, sliced into salad (but has anyone mastered a way to get them pretty while removing the seeds?)
With Thanksgiving coming up, some of you may want to try this if you can obtain enough puree (any variety will workâI use a food mill). It is like a pumpkin pie but way better!
There are seeds? Iâve never encountered seeds (either that or thereâs a forest of persimmon plants growing in my tummy now )
I peel Fuyus â donât like the texture of the skin, though Iâve eaten it a few times because it feels like a cop-out.
If you get to them just-ripe, they peel and slice very neatly. Just on the other side, it ainât pretty, but itâs still tasty.
(I bought a pile the other day at a chinese market because the big ones were 2.49/lb instead of $3 each, so itâs going to be a race against ripening to eat them before squish-stage )
In the Fuyu I would say I have seen the bigger brown seeds on occasion, but more often I see what I would call âvestigalâ seeds; maybe they are immature or not pollinated. Or maybe itâs just the little fibrous case where seeds would be.
Every Sunday from 7 AM to 2 PM thereâs a combination farmerâs market and flea market quite near the house of a friend where Iâm currently staying in Tokushima (on Shikoku Island). I went last Sunday and saw a basket of 6 large fuyu persimmons (hachiya persimmons were also available) for 200 yen (=$1.34).
I told the vendor I wanted them and either because she had a glut of them or because she was intrigued by the fluent Japanese-speaking westerner who likes persimmons (both rather rare in these parts, I think), she proceeded to keep putting more and more in the bag as âserviceâ to me. I finally had to stop her because I feared that I would have too many to eat and too many to store (the friend whom I staying with doesnât like them).
When I counted them there were 18 in the bag! Theyâre of various sizes, stages of ripeness and quite homely looking, but yummy. I love to eat fuyu persimmons for dessert and are certainly better for me than eating some chocolate or cookies instead!
Lucky, indeed! The large ones with perfect, unblemished skins are around „120 (1.10 CAD) in the major supermarket chains in Tokushima. But nearly every home with a garden in this city has a persimmon tree and many homeowners sell them to local green grocers who sell them to those people who donât have such trees. I can usually find them for about „50 (0.46 CAD) at those types of places.
Unfortunately, these days, persimmons are generally thought of as an âold personâs foodâ and are falling out of favor with the younger generations. Even I didnât like them until I became middle aged (I just turned 60 less than 2 weeks ago).