Believe it or not they taste really good when they are ripe. They are even great in persimmon pudding. It doesn't last... it's that good. Every time that I would make it for my family, it was always a favorite. My very first time to ever cook it and give it a try was last fall. That taught me to pick them and see what all kinds of things that I could come up with. This year has been so busy, that I have not got around to making the wonderful persimmon pudding yet, but I have been busy pressing the pulp and putting the pulp in the freezer. I save the seeds to sale and trade with my gardening friends. I dry and save the peelings to feed to our chickens, who enjoy this wonderful treat. Here's a recipe for the persimmon pudding that I made last year:
Persimmon Pudding:
Ingredients-
2 Cups Persimmon Pulp (Can be either fresh or frozen)
2 1/2 Cups Granulated Sugar
2 Eggs, Beaten
2 Cups Self-Rising Flour (You can also All-Purpose flour)
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon (optional, but tastes great either way)
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 Pinch Salt
2 1/2 Cups Milk
4 Tablespoons Melted Butter
Directions-
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Butter one 9 X 13 inch baking pan and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine your persimmon pulp, sugar, and eggs. Then add in your flour, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, milk, and melted butter. **Please note If you are using All-Purpose flour, you would add 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 2 tsps baking powder at this time to the other ingredients. Be sure to mix everything very well and pour the mixture into your buttered baking pan. Bake in oven for 55 minutes. This pudding will rise but will fall when you remove it from the oven. Can be served warm or cooled.... you can also top it with cool whip or ice cream for a really tasty special treat.
I had been doing a lot of reading about persimmons over the course of the last year and have read somewhere once that the Native American nations really understood how valuable persimmons were. Persimmons were preserved by drying, then added to breads, soup, or porridge. Persimmons were baked into pies, cakes, puddings, and even made into a variety of alcoholic drinks, by European settlers. Here's a quote about persimmons:
"Plumbs there are of 3 sorts. The red and white are like our hedge plumbs: but the other, which they call Putchamins, grow as high as a Palmeta. The fruit is like a medler; it is first greene, then yellow, and red when it is ripe: if it be not ripe it will drawe a mans mouth awrie with much torment; but when it is ripe, it is as delicious as an Apricock." - Captain John Smith, 1612
My children and I enjoy walking around the yard during various times of the day, while we search for any fresh persimmons that may have fell from the tree. We usually find over 1 bowl full of fresh fruit, which I will use a kitchen press to press the pulp. The screen that is on our press has a basket that I can remove, that help prevent the seeds and peeling from going into the pulp. There will always be some minor amounts of tiny seeds, that didn't quite form all of the way, but other than that... you will have pure pulp. I will try to very delicately wash away any dirt, grass, or leaves prior to pressing to prevent any of that getting into the pulp.
In between adding persimmons to the press, I will remove the plastic basket in the press, removing the seeds and peeling. I set the seeds aside in a bowl of water for a few hours, so that the any remaining pulp or peeling will more easily wash free from the seeds. I pour the fresh pulp into freezer bags and lay them out on a cookie sheet and set in the freezer. Once the pulp has frozen, I will lay the flat freezer bags in the freezer, in a stack so that I can maximize the space in the freezer. I feed the peelings to our chickens who have come to really enjoy persimmons. :)
After I have washed the seeds quite cleanly, I will spread them all out onto a cookie sheet to dry for a few days. Once they have dried, I will package them up to either sale or trade to my fellow gardening friends. To me, persimmons taste like candy... they're very different from anything that you have ever tasted. Once you try them you will really enjoy them a lot. I plan to add pictures of the whole process and add a new blog post about our experiences with persimmons.
I have old-fashioned views I know, but I think that it is important to learn about things from our history, because doing things the old-fashioned way may just help us survive when we are in a crisis or a time when surviving is critical. I also plan to write about persimmon leaf tea... already sounds good. Well... gonna go and do some laundry... lol Take care and have a great weekend!! Until next post...... May God bless!!
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