Puckering up with Persimmons.

October 26^th

When the word “persimmon” is mentioned, is the word “puckery” ever far behind? It seems not, and Henry Thoreau certainly put them together in his journal article of this day in 1856.

“The persimmon (Diospyros Virginiana) quite common. Saw some trees quite full of fruit. There was a little left on the trees when I left, November 24th, but I should think it was in its prime about the end of the first week of November, i.e., what would readily shake off. Before, it was commonly puckery. In any case it furs the mouth just like the choke-cherry. It is not good for much. They would be more edible if it were not for the numerous large seeds, and when you have rejected them there is little but skin left. Yet I was surprised that the fruit was not more generally gathered.”

We pucker-up for unripe persimmons because of their highly astringent nature – an astringent being a chemical that actually dries and shrinks body tissue. It seems we may be biologically programmed to react unfavourably to bitter and astringent foods as in nature they often indicate poisons, so a taste for such foods must be acquired. Certainly we are able to do this to some extent: the followers of Ayurvedic principles consider bitter to be one of the six basic tastes; many Asian people enjoy bitter melon; many Engish people enjoy their tea with industrial-strength tannins. I don’t know anyone who relishes unripe bananas, but you may be lurking out there.

Some foods are said to be psycho-active (all chocolate and some mushrooms?), but here we have a food that has a direct physical effect that is completely unrelated to its nutritional value. The great astringency of an unripe persimmon will stimulate the muscles of the face to form a “corrugation of the skin of the face, brow, lips” – or, less prosaically, to “drawe a man’s mouth awrie, with much torment”.

Are there any other foods that have such a sudden and direct physical effect? The only ones I can think of, after much brain-wracking, are chilli peppers on most occasions when they are eaten, and ice-cream when it causes “ice-cream headache”. Both the chilli pepper and the ice-cream experience are examples of a neurological glitch caused by the misinterpretation of a sensory stimulus in the mouth (chemical or temperature). In the case of the chilli peppers, the significance of the capsaicin (the “hot” chemical) is misinterpreted by the brain, which invokes the body’s heat loss mechanisms (flushing, sweating). In an incident of “brain-freeze” the constriction of the blood vessels in the palate due to the cold ice-cream triggers a neurological response called referred pain that is thankfully usually very brief. Can you think of any other examples?

To avoid serious persimmon-pucker, there seems to be only two choices: eat them very ripe, or try this trick from a United States Department of Agriculture Farmer’s Bulletin of 1915:

“Since heat makes the astringency of the persimmon more apparent, it is always well to add one-half teaspoonful of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) to each cupful of persimmon pulp in all recipes where the fruit is subjected to heat. Although it has been proved by experiment that the soda may be omitted if the fruit is entirely free from astringency, it is better to use it until one is sure of the quality of the persimmon pulp.”

In a previous post we had recipes for Persimmon Bread and Persimmon Beer. Here are a couple of recipes from the Farmers’ Bulletin that might be a bit more practical for most of us today.

PERSIMMON-PEANUT GRIDDLECAKES.
1 cup of persimmon pulp.
1 teaspoonful of baking powder.
1 tablespoonful of peanut butter.
1/2 teaspoonful of soda.
1 egg. Milk to make a thin batter.
1 cup of flour.
Bake and serve as above. [i.e on a hot griddle; serve with butter or sirop]

PERSIMMON-PEANUT MUFFINS (A GOOD RECIPE FOR CAMPERS).
1/2 cup of persimmon pulp.
1 teaspoonful of baking powder.
1 tablespoonful of peanut butter.

1 egg
1/2 teaspoonful of soda.
1 cup of flour.
Press or cut in pats 1/2 inch thick and bake in a quick oven.

Monday’s Story …

To the Officers of the Mouth.

Quotation for the Day …

… its [the persimmon’s] bitter power of astringency is surprising, and seems capable of suspending for a time all the faculties of the lips, and binds up the risible muscles of the sufferer to the same extent that it excites those of a spectator. Charles Augustus Murray (in the 1830’s)