I picked up Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah at the airport yesterday. They plan to be here for a week. I think the focus of the week will be cooking! Grandpa says he is going to teach Kelly and Christian to cook Chicken Cordon Bleu, Cornish Game Hens, and a special pasta dish. The Chicken Cordon Bleu includes Grandpa Milo’s own special blend of spices that he says he might modify a little to make it a little hotter for us Mexicans. It should be a lot of fun.
When we arrived at the house, the first thing Grandpa Milo did was pick several of the small (about 1 inch) persimmons from the tree at the end of the driveway. They are already ripe and VERY tasty. Maybe we ought to think about making some persimmon jelly, too.
Persimmon cookies and persimmon bread is excellent, too. Are they the smaller persimmons that you eat like apples, or the ones whose pulp is typically used for cooking?
If they are the smaller ones, I save some for pulp….just wait until they are over-ripe and very soft and freeze the pulp in 1 cup portions for cookies. Yummy!
I have never had persimmon jelly. Sounds interesting. Usually, we just wash, cut and eat them like apples. My mother-in-law has several trees. I also mix them with fall/winter squashes and Indian corn for a nice and inexpensive fall arrangement.
These are all GREAT ideas. Our persimmons are about the size of a walnut. This is the first time I have seen one that small, but they are very, very sweet when they are ripe. Persimmon cookies sound absolutely fabulous. Grandpa Milo has indicated that not of the persimmons are ripe enough to do anything yet, so we will have to wait another week or two. The frozen pulp sounds like it would be awesome for some summer treats, too.
I have never seen persimmons the size of a walnut. Some dwarf variety? or are they expected to grow larger?
I had never seen any that small either and really did not think they were edible, but when Dad came the first time, he picked them off the tree and ate them. That was over a year ago and he is still alive, so I guess they are OK. The surely taste good.
This (small) persimmon grows wild all over S. IN. We are fortunate (?) to have a huge tree that drops 5 gallons a day for about a month right behind our garage. We eat them. pulp them, and save the pulp for a local favorite, persimmon pudding, but also like the pulp baked into bread, muffins, cake, cookies, etc! There are many large seeds in the persimmon which is why it needs to be pulped. Locals say if you cut a seed in half vertically, inside there will either be the shape of a fork, knife or spoon. These are supposed to be indicators of the upcoming winter. A fork indicates a mild winter, a knife predicts cutting cold, and a spoon stands for lots of snow. This year we found a snow, so the kids have all their snow gear ready and waiting! (I have my doubts…)
we found a spoon…
Woo-hoo! Maybe you all can show us what to do with these Audrey. They surely are tasty!
2 more things about persimmons:
1) Don’t ever let anyone talk you into eating them while they are unripe/green or still on the tree; they are as bitter as anything you will ever taste!
2) We have 2 main types of persimmons in IN before-the-frost persimmons and after-the-frost persimmons. They are only good/sweet in the time their name indicates. We have a before-the-frost tree, but across the road, in the woods, there are more after-the-frost persimmon trees than you can count. Yours is probably a before-the-frost as most cultivated stock are.
Thanks for the notes on this Audrey. Grandpa Milo has always been a fan of persimmons, so we knew about the ripeness thing. The before/after frost thing is very interesting. We are dying for the persimmons to get a little bit riper so we can try them out. We will be to check, too, right after the first frost!