Persimmons are one of the first wild foods I learned to identify. I can remember picking up persimmons with my father when I was small enough to ride in a seat over the back wheel of his bicycle. Those trees were on a local wildlife refuge near the river that had a network of gravel and dirt roads that were nice to bike on. I have since found persimmons in virtually every kind of environment in this part of the country, from swamps to mountaintops and everywhere in between.
Persimmons are large trees at maturity with a distinctive charcoal-black checked bark. Once you learn to recognize them you can spot them at a glance at great distance. No other tree has quite the same bark. They bloom late in the spring with small square white flowers, which can sometimes be seen on the ground after they drop. Persimmons are dioecious, meaning that some trees are male and some are female, and the male trees never bear fruit. The botanists among you will be able to tell male from female by the anatomy of the flowers, but I have not yet learned how to, I just look for the fruit later in the season. The fruits ripen and fall from the tree starting at the beginning of September here, to the consternation of many who insist that persimmons do not ripen until after a hard frost. We have not had frost here before Halloween in my memory.
The ripe fruit is delicious, gooey and sweet with a beautiful translucent orange color. Fruit that is even a smidge less than perfectly ripe is abhorrent and will pucker your mouth closed. You will quickly develop the required discernment if you try a few. The punishment for being wrong is memorable.
After years of only eating persimmons when I happened upon them in the woods during the fall, I started to wonder how they could be preserved. There are often truly large crops of them and when you happen upon a productive tree, you can harvest them by the gallon. But what to do with them after that? They do not keep well for fresh eating, as they tend to smash all together into a blob, and then there’s the question of removing the large seeds.
A food mill is a real help in removing the seeds, but the output is a glop that you might at best put on oatmeal. It keeps well frozen if you seal it in freezer bags with all the air pressed out. But what to do with it after that? I have tried drying it to make a fruit leather, but it is brittle and much of the subtle flavor is lost. I have had persimmon jam before, but the texture is somewhat grainy, and the color goes from glorious fall orange to muddy brown upon cooking. I was vexed by the conundrum or what to do with this stuff for some years.
And then I read Stalking the Wild Asparagus, by Euell Gibbons. That is where this recipe comes from, and it is so good that I have stopped looking for another way to use persimmons. I freeze persimmon pulp by the cup just for making persimmon bread, and I always make at least two loaves at a time so I can freeze one. They freeze fine if you let the loaf cool all the way, then wrap it in a few layers of plastic wrap. The original recipe calls for hickory nuts. While I aspire to that level of toughness, I’m not quite there yet. Store bought pecans or walnuts do fine. It also calls for margarine and I use butter instead.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup persimmon pulp without seeds (made by running persimmons through a food mill, or you can mash them through a colander with a spoon)
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts, plus a few whole to decorate the top of the loaf
Preheat the oven to 325, and grease a loaf pan. Cream the butter and sugar together. Sift the baking soda and flour together into the creamed butter and sugar. Add persimmon pulp and chopped nuts, and stir to form a thick batter. Pour into the greased pan and place a few whole nuts on the top. Bake for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
