How [not] to make Persimmon Pudding

It all started with a trip to the big box store where I get my toilet paper, my kid’s lunch snacks, and my frozen goods.  There they were, beaming up at me.  Persimmons.  I have to admit to a secret love affair with persimmons.  They’re mysterious.  They’re sweet and sour at the same time, which is why my son named our dog Persimmon.  They look like a yellow tomato, but they’re not.  They grow from a variety of ebony tree.  Native to China then exported within milliseconds to Japan, their varieties have beautiful Japanese names, like Fuyu and Hachiya.  The Hachiya looked gorgeous, and I had a potluck coming up Saturday night, so I would try my hand at persimmon pudding.

Saturday morning dawns, and I make breakfast for my husband and myself while my teenager wannabe has a lie-in.  As we wait for the water to boil, I offer hubby a slice of one of the gorgeous Hachiya persimmons with the USA sticker, and I bite into one myself.

Big mistake.

I instantly feel as if I downed a bottle of 100-year-old Bordeaux.  Without the buzz.  My gums pull away from my teeth.  My tongue grows hair.  I start clearing my throat at the rate and with the sound effects of an 80-year-old man with a sinus infection.  Good gods!  What is happening?  This is not the persimmon I knew and loved!

A quick trip to Wikipedia tells me I am not suffering from an allergic reaction, and, to my relief, would not need to visit the ER.  Turns out that Hachiya and Fuyu are quite different varieties.  Fuyu, which are short and squat, can be eaten like apples.  Hachiya should be kept on one’s windowsill until they’re completely soft and mushy.  Until that point, the tannic acid—the same tannic acid found in oak barrels to keep wine, and in such fruits as the cashew apple—has an extremely astringent effect.

I’ll say.

Once my hairy mouth wears off, I head off to the farmer’s market.  Once I get an idea in my head, I’m not easily dissuaded.  I ask my friend Sarah, the second-in-command at the market, if anyone sells persimmons.  I had never seen them there, but Sarah is in the know.  As luck would have it, the first-in-command had just purchased some from none other than my beloved Claybank Farms’ farmer Greg.  Whaddya know.  I smile and try to keep myself from running to his booth.

I’m pretty sure my love affair with persimmons started with a family recipe of persimmon pudding from my youth.  My mother and aunt talked about a persimmon tree that grew on their parents’ farm in Clay County, Illinois, coincidentally not far from the Claybank Farm itself.  A little more Wikipedia research tells me that there is an eastern US variety of persimmon, the American Persimmon, that is even higher in vitamins and minerals than its Asian cousins.  Flavor and nutrition?!  I’m hooked.

I ask Greg about the persimmons, and his face lights up.  “Why, yes, the persimmons are finally in season!”  He goes rooting around in his coolers and comes up with a Ziploc bag of what looks to be orange pingpong balls in mush.  Yes, this is what I remember.  This.  He proceeds to tell me that his aunt recommends simmering them before running them through a strainer or food mill.  I add the persimmons to my weekly order, and as I’m paying him, he asks, “hey do you know what you’re supposed to do with the seed?”

I shake my head no.

“Well, if you cut the seed in half, it will predict what winter is going to be like.  Of course, the persimmons have to be local.”

Of course.

“If you see a spoon, the winter will be full of snow and precipitation, but not very cold.  If you see a fork, the winter will be dry and windy.  That’s what I’ve been told, anyway,” he winks at me.

I can’t wait to get home to split one of those seeds open. But first, persimmon pudding.

So…in keeping with my romance with the southern Illinois persimmon, I feel I have to use my grandmother’s original recipe.  I crack open the Ancient Binder of Secrets, and find this:

Sorry, Grandma, this is completely unusable.  First of all, despite being a food hoarder, I simply cannot imagine cooking a recipe that calls for milk and flour in units of [half] gallons.  Second…what do I do?  Where are the instructions?  Third, what is a “slow oven?”  I have a high ambiguity tolerance in general, and usually I’m OK with vague cooking instructions, but this has me beat.  Once again, I turn to the internet.  I find a couple of recipes here and there, and glom them together to make something I think would be tasty, and more pudding-like than cake-like.  All the recipes have flour, milk, eggs, baking soda, cinnamon, sugar.  And, of course, persimmon pulp.

Next, to process the persimmons into persimmon pulp.  According to Greg, after simmering them for a bit it should be relatively easy.  I simmer for a few minutes, then let them cool.

Curses to you, Greg.

I start with my grandmother’s ancient food mill.  I grind and I grind and I grind.  A half-inch of pulp clings to the bottom of the mill.  I scrape it off and start over.  Almost nothing.  Frustrated, I grab a strainer and start pushing it through.  Even worse.  After going back and forth between food mill, strainer, and colander, I am cussing.  And the beautiful persimmon-y orange color has oxidized to a dark brown.  Finally, after about a half an hour of processing, I get enough pulp to make a double-recipe of the stuff.  I swear I will never do it again.

I started with the food mill

... then the strainer

...and finally the colander

But after baking the pudding in a water bath, it is splendid.  It’s not too sweet, which I prefer, and with a drizzle of maple syrup, it’s just as I remember.  A dollop of vanilla ice cream makes it divine.  And although most people thought I had brought brownies to the potluck, they soon discovered the wonder of my family’s fall culinary heritage highlight:  the persimmon pudding.

No photo.  You know what brownies look like, right?  Like that.

But, wait…what about the seed?

My husband and I rescue one from the compost bin, and I come as close as I ever have to cutting off my own finger in an attempt to cut it in half length-wise.  After last year’s horrible winter, we want to know what we’re in for.  We hold our breath to see if it’s a spoon or a fork.

It’s a knife.

We go through the process again, again narrowly close to losing a limb, only to find the same exact shape.

Most decidedly a knife.

For the third time, I thank the powers-that-be for the blessing of the internet, and all the knowledge that she holds.  (Farmer Greg will get an earful the next time I see him). A site with the full farmer’s almanac lore sheds more light on the matter; if the kernel inside the seed is shaped like a spoon it means indeed a warmer, snowier winter (spoon = shovel); a fork indicates a mild winter with powdery snow; and a knife indicates a cutting, fierce wind and lower-than-normal temperatures.  See for yourself at http://www.almanac.com/content/predicting-weather-using-persimmon-seed.

Family folklore, winter weather wiles, and cinnamon-persimmon-y goodness? That’s something you can’t get from those puckery persimmons at the grocery store…