what can I do with persimmons?

I ate one once. 5 minutes of my life I will never get back
You could freeze them and use them to repel invaders...
https://youtu.be/ykF3TUTI2hU

I have made this recipe numerous times with my American persimmons.  I gave some of this bread to a friend, and he called and asked me if it contained cannabis because he felt so happy after he ate it!  Yes, it's that good.  I use toasted pecans and maple bourbon.

https://www.davidlebovitz.com/persimmon-bread/

Also, the cooking time was too short for my oven.

Persimmon jam, pudding, and fool are also excellent ways to highlight this delicious fruit.

This was very informative for things like how to tell if they are ripe, all the different varieties and some recipes:

https://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to/packages/food-network-essentials/how-to-eat-persimmons

I only grow American persimmons, because I think they have a more complex, interesting  taste.  I eat all of them right away.

John S
PDX OR

Persimmons make excellent jelly. The kind that grows wild here are rather tart. I can eat one or two raw but mostly I eat it as a sweetened jelly.

I am growing all the different kinds of Diospyrus kaki and viriginiana.  I have a couple trees producing right now. Prok and Early Jewel.  Both of them I find on the ground and they are very sweet.  My non-astringent varieties are not ripe yet and there is still a couple months before first frost.

Some asked about topping a tree. Here we have only American persimmons, it's zone 6B, just a little too cold for the Asian ones I think.  But most of the trees we collect from have been grafted. You can cut a sizable tree at three or four feet from the ground, then do two grafts in a cleft and have a good chance of at least one taking. I think we have several varieties but have not been good about keeping track. However, they are mostly twice the size of the wild ones, and have few or no seeds--whereas the wild ones--well I have not found a better way to remove seeds (and that little tail at the blossom end) than to go through them with my hands, a messy process. And then I have equal quantities usable pulp and seeds/ caps. (Which I have learned not put in the compost as these seedlings are a pain to dig out of my garden). And often you miss one--so then you have to eat the results carefully. I read that the reason (some of) the grafted ones are seedless is that they result from a cross between out native Diospyros virginiana and a D texensis, and that these have--surprisingly--different numbers of chromosomes. But it seems my trees will drop some fruits that do have at least one seed. I wish I new the role of male trees--should I get rid of most of them, or do the females need males around to fruit well? Persimmons are one of those trees that come in male and female individuals.  Incidentally, if you are disappointed that your growing tree has turned out to be male, you can graft it to accomplish a sex change operation. My main two wild trees are relatively tall and slender compared to the grafted ones, and while I'd call the fruit inferior because it's smaller and seedier (same taste), one of them has often had hundreds and hundreds of fruits--the whole fifty foot tree turns orange in a good year.
My three main recipes are for a muffin, a cookie bar with lemon icing and a cake. Since I do have gastric issues and have identified persimmons as a factor, I don't often eat any raw, but I save the pulp in the freezer so I can make one of these whenever I want.

I freeze them whole.
Then I cut them up into chunks and put them in the blender with milk and vanilla.
They make a great milk shake/smoothie kinda thing.
It's sweet enough that it needs no sugar.
If you pour it into little bowls and let it sit a few hours, the tannins and gels in the persimmon curdle the milk so it becomes kinda like a pudding. You can eat it with a spoon.
Usually mine have no seeds, but you would be able to get the seeds out when you cut them up if necessary.

I keep them on the counter until they’re softish and then freeze them. Once they’re all frozen I thaw them out and run them through the food mill and then freeze dry them. The powder is delicious for a huge variety of things but I started it for my dad’s favorite flavor of my kombucha, his persimmon and honey.

Here in the PNW you can grow either the Asian persimmons or the American ones. Neither are native here.  I prefer the American ones because they have a more complex flavor. It's a little bit like butterscotch or rum.  The early American ones ripen earlier than any of  the Asian ones, so you can eat them fresh over a longer period of time.  They are so delicious that I just eat them right up.  The Asian ones taste good, but they are kind of sweet and bland IMHO. One Asian kind that I like is called Saijo.  It's kind of a sloppy mess when ripe, but delicious.  Some of the American varieties That I like the most are Garretson, H-118 (prairie something) and Szukis.  Szukis is mostly male, which makes more seeded, pollinated persimmons. My Szukis didn't really taste good until I biocharred it. Then it quintupled in production and flavor. Some of the varieties get bigger and tastier when seeded.

John S
PDX OR

I am late to the persimmon party it seems, though I am VERY envious (I tried to start a small persimmon tree this year but so far unsuccessful) but the one way that my husband loves it when he is not like me usually fond of them in all their forms, is PORRIDGE. I peel and cut them up and put them into a mix of very fine oats, buckwheat, and puffed amaranth, and a tiny bit of psyllium husks cooked with some brown sugar and whatever else I have (oscillating between pine nuts, walnuts, Hemp seeds or pumpkin seeds.

Mike Barkley wrote:Persimmons make excellent jelly.

Mike, do you have a recipe for persimmon jelly?

No. I usually am gifted it. Can only recall making it once & I think I used a random blueberry jelly recipe to do it.

I tried to make persimmon jam, once. Only once. It turned into a dense block of persimmon for slicing. Except, it didn't come out of the jars, very easily, either. When I attempted to stir it,, it crumbled. After looking into it, online, low and behold - persimmon jam is not a thing, and neither is persimmon butter, and all of this is why. Jelly is likely a whole other ball of wax.

I had the experience as Carla, only trying to can pawpaw pulp. So I've never tried to make persimmon jam, as I figured it would turn out the same. What I do is pick out the seeds, then freeze the pulp till I want it for a recipe--muffins, cake and cookie bars ate my three persimmon recipes.

Mary Cook wrote:I had the experience as Carla, only trying to can pawpaw pulp. So I've never tried to make persimmon jam, as I figured it would turn out the same. What I do is pick out the seeds, then freeze the pulp till I want it for a recipe--muffins, cake and cookie bars ate my three persimmon recipes.

I don't know why anyone would want or need to make persimmon jam.  At least as it concerns American persimmons (I'm less familiar with, and therefore can't comment on Asian persimmons).  They are so sweet naturally that I simply spread raw persimmon pulp - the result of smashing the persimmons into goo by hand in order to remove the seeds - on toast and on cakes, similar to how one might use jam.  It's delicious.  The only drawback is that I keep it frozen between fruiting seasons; I don't know that it is shelf stable like a jam with added sugar.  Perhaps, but I doubt it and have never put it to the test.

Matthew Nistico wrote:The only drawback is that I keep it frozen between fruiting seasons; I don't know that it is shelf stable like a jam with added sugar.  Perhaps, but I doubt it and have never put it to the test.

You've answered your own question, Matthew. Jam is shelf stable. Unpreserved fruit is not. Freezer space is usually at a premium, so preserving fruits in the form of ham, jelly, 'preserves', or pie filling allows the fruit to be enjoyed year 'round, without usurping freezer space from necessities like meats and veggies.

Carla Burke wrote:You've answered your own question, Matthew. Jam is shelf stable. Unpreserved fruit is not.

It all depends on total sugar content.  In theory, raw fruit pulp with sufficient sugar would keep.  Like I said, perhaps American persimmon pulp qualifies, but I don't know and have not demonstrated it.  And probably don't particularly care to try.

I will say this, though: I scavenge my persimmons from a public tree (I have one of my own, but it is still small) and pick everything windfall off of the ground.  Many of those fruit have likely lain on the ground for a good while before I get to them.  Some get smushed, some dry up and become mummies, some succumb to ants.  But I have never seen a moldy persimmon where I forage.

I don't think they do mold.  I think they have too much sugar.

They will ferment. So, another option might be persimmon wine or mead.

I cook a persimmon "jam" (more like a compote) just enough to make it stable in the fridge for a week, so my husband can throw it into his oatmeal every morning. He gets up way too early and runs on autopilot, so he's not going to cut up a persimmon like I would, but he can put a plop of jam in.
In fact I make this year round with whatever fruit i have on hand. Right now I have a jar of slightly cooked mango, and when pickings are really slim I'll make a compote of dried dates or even raisins.

A tip if they're not ripe. You can put them into the freezer which tricks them into ripening.
Works a treat.

Tereza Okava wrote:I cook a persimmon "jam" (more like a compote) just enough to make it stable in the fridge for a week, so my husband can throw it into his oatmeal every morning. He gets up way too early and runs on autopilot, so he's not going to cut up a persimmon like I would, but he can put a plop of jam in.
In fact I make this year round with whatever fruit i have on hand. Right now I have a jar of slightly cooked mango, and when pickings are really slim I'll make a compote of dried dates or even raisins.

What a LOVELY idea, Tereza!! Thank you! I think I'm going to try taking this page from your book, and see how it works for us. Seems like a great way to do short term preservation for lots of fruits, without sugar, too - or with stevia, or monkfruit, so they don't send me into a hypoglycemic drop. Neither of those is considered a stable means of long term preservation in place of sugar, and I just hadn't thought about doing it this way. I'm sure it would do great for freezer preservation, too, if space allows.

I have to say I'm really glad that this thread has been revived. I originally started it to ask about Asian persimmons, but last year, Hurricane Helene knocked over our only wild American persimmon tree.

American persimmon tree knocked down by a hurricane

I never got much from this tree because it was so very tall. The fruit was impossible to reach so I had to count on windfall. But in my neck of the woods, the persimmons were ripening and falling long before first frost. So they were almost always astringent.

There were so many persimmons on the tree after it fell that I tried an experiment. I gathered them and put them in the freezer. I was quite happy to discover that this false freeze sweetened them nicely! I have something like 8 or 10 gallons of them in the freezer. The deterrent has been how small and seedy they are, so that the hand mill takes forever to extract the pulp. Thanks to ya'll, I'm inspired once again to see what I can do with them.

I gathered them and put them in the freezer. I was quite happy to discover that this false freeze sweetened them nicely!

Sounds like the perfect solution for around here. Going to give it a try.

Tereza Okava wrote:I cook a persimmon "jam" (more like a compote) just enough to make it stable in the fridge for a week, so my husband can throw it into his oatmeal every morning. He gets up way too early and runs on autopilot, so he's not going to cut up a persimmon like I would, but he can put a plop of jam in.
In fact I make this year round with whatever fruit i have on hand. Right now I have a jar of slightly cooked mango, and when pickings are really slim I'll make a compote of dried dates or even raisins.

In NZ, water bathing is the most common method of preserving, pressure canning is not the norm.

Your compotes sound like perfect candidates for water bathing and the fruit would only need to be barely softened enough to fit into the jars easily as they would continue to cook in the water bath.

If you have a surplus of persimmons and any other fruit that you would normally compote, you could water bath several jars at a time for use throughout the year to give hubby a bit of variety out of season.

Our pantry is well stocked with peach, apricot, apple, rhubarb compotes that are over a year old that do not have any added sugar in them - if the jar lid bulges or there are signs of bubbles, I wouldn’t eat them but touch wood, that is yet to happen to me.

this is an excellent idea, thank you!
(if and when we ever get tired of tomato onion jam, there may be some jars freed up!! right now I made the mistake of making tomato onion jam for all my sisters in law and let's just say, if all else fails i'll be opening a tomato/onion jam business. i can't go anywhere without getting a "WHEN ARE YOU MAKING JAM AGAIN", from people I barely even know. they are, of course, water bath canned in all my old chili crisp jars!)

Megan Palmer wrote:

Tereza Okava wrote:I cook a persimmon "jam" (more like a compote) just enough to make it stable in the fridge for a week, so my husband can throw it into his oatmeal every morning.

In NZ, water bathing is the most common method of preserving, pressure canning is not the norm.   Your compotes sound like perfect candidates for water bathing and the fruit would only need to be barely softened enough to fit into the jars easily as they would continue to cook in the water bath.

Our pantry is well stocked with peach, apricot, apple, rhubarb compotes that are over a year old that do not have any added sugar in them - if the jar lid bulges or there are signs of bubbles, I wouldn’t eat them but touch wood, that is yet to happen to me.

Wow, I am amazed at your track record with successfully water-bath canning compotes.  Conventional wisdom says that you can only safely can food that has either sufficiently low pH (acidic foods) or sufficiently high sugar content (preserves).

Now, I do recognize that the official version of food safety here in the US is extremely conservative.  For example, the FDA verdict is that all jams must be water-bath canned.  Whereas many Europeans react to this with puzzlement.  They simply ladle boiling jam into sterilized jars and set them in the cupboard, no canning required.  And they've been doing it that way for centuries.  I no longer can all of my jams and, like you, I've had nothing but good results - but my jams still have a bunch of added sugar in them!  Unlike your compotes, presumably.

Hello Matthew, all the fruit that I preserve are home grown by myself or grown by friends as they know that they will be repaid in kind with jars of jam or chutney😉

I prefer to make chutney out of fruit that is less than perfect so the ones that I bottle/(water bath) are often only just ripe or under ripe. I lightly poach them in water to soften so that they compact into the jars and pour the poaching liquid in the jar. If the fruit is too tart, I will make a light syrup 100g sugar to 1 litre water to fill the jars.

All the jams that I make only use between 40-60% sugar to fruit with the exception of seville orange marmalade that uses a 1-1 ratio of sugar to fruit (conventional recipes recommend double sugar to fruit😬).

None of my jams are waterbathed and they will store for over a year without any trouble. I reuse jars from the supermarket too, although do buy new lids if the originals are dented or scratched!

Here's a small selection of preserves from our shelves that were water bathed and bottled in a light syrup.

This is getting a bit off topic, as I question whether you can make a decent jam from persimmons...but my two cents on this question is that current wisdom is that fruit and others that are sufficiently acid may be water bath canned, but less acidic items must be pressure canned. I do both, depending on the item. But I agree that USDA is very conservative--I think the idea is that rather than one case of botulism resulting from someone who thought they followed the guidelines (but shaved a bit), they'd rather millions of housewives and househusbands putting unnecessary time and fuel into canning. When I can tomatoes--which to my tongue are less acid than they used to be, and I've been searching for a tomato that's both sweet and tangy--I do a 15 minute water bath, and also add a tablespoon of lemon juice to each quart. I also do a 15 minute water bath for jams and pickles. But this is partly because my understanding is that it takes 15 minutes of boiling to sterilize the jars--so might as well have them already filled. But 45 years ago, local women here in West Virginia told me they just canned tomatoes and jams "open kettle," meaning you got the contents boiling, the jars in boiling water, filled the jars and sealed them and you were done. And I did it that way for years with no ill effects. But like I say, if you have to boil the jars for 15 minutes to sterilize them, might as well fill and seal them first.
Here's my question for this thread--does anyone have experience with both Asian and American persimmons, who can compare them?

Mary Cook wrote:Here's my question for this thread--does anyone have experience with both Asian and American persimmons, who can compare them?

I do, but it's limited. I planted the Asian persimmon because our wild persimmons were too high to get (mature tree too tall) and I found that they ripened before first frost anyway, so they were often astringent. But I'm in the southeastern US, so location is a factor for that. Plus the American persimmons are small with lots of seeds, so it's time consuming to separate the pulp from seeds and skin.

What I like about the Asian persimmon is that they don't need frost to sweeten. Plus they are quite large with plenty of pulp. Much easier to process. Unfortunately, my tree has had a poor harvest for the past several years, so production doesn't seem to be consistent from year to year. The American persimmon always seemed to have more abundant production.

That said, the only thing I've done with any of my persimmons is make and freeze the pulp. I freeze it in muffin tins and have a nice amount to defrost for pancakes, muffins, or cake.

Leigh--I question the "ripens before frost, therefore astringent" part. I think frost is irrelevant to the question of ripening and astringency, and that astringency means it isn't ripe. For the wild trees, even the ones in the open that have branches closer to the ground, most persimmons need to be picked up off the ground--and USUALLY their being on the ground means they're ripe. Not all, but you can generally tell because the ripe ones are orange and soft. For me, I have gotten the runs after eating persimmons off the ground, so now I use persimmon only cooked--baked actually, as my three recipes all involve baking. The grafted ones are significantly bigger and have fewer or no seeds. This is one of the things I'm wondering about the Asian ones--do they have similar seeds? I also wonder if there are any hybrids with much larger fruit than American ones but hardy to zone 6.

Mary Cook wrote:Leigh--I question the "ripens before frost, therefore astringent" part. I think frost is irrelevant to the question of ripening and astringency, and that astringency means it isn't ripe. For the wild trees, even the ones in the open that have branches closer to the ground, most persimmons need to be picked up off the ground--and USUALLY their being on the ground means they're ripe.

The ones I'm referring to were gathered off the ground, were orange, soft, and squishy, but still astringent. As with other types of fruit trees, I suspect there's a lot of variation in the fruit. I did find putting them in the freezer made a difference.

I'm wondering about the Asian ones--do they have similar seeds?

The variety I have has similar seeds, but there's so much more pulp that the seeds aren't as bothersome.

I also wonder if there are any hybrids with much larger fruit than American ones but hardy to zone 6.

That would be a good research project.

As I've said earlier, I've grown both American and Asian persimmons. I prefer the Americans, because IMHO, they have a more complex, wild flavor.  They're so good that i eat them all up. None to process.
John S
PDX OR

Mary Cook wrote:Leigh--I question the "ripens before frost, therefore astringent" part. I think frost is irrelevant to the question of ripening and astringency, and that astringency means it isn't ripe. For the wild trees, even the ones in the open that have branches closer to the ground, most persimmons need to be picked up off the ground--and USUALLY their being on the ground means they're ripe. Not all, but you can generally tell because the ripe ones are orange and soft. For me, I have gotten the runs after eating persimmons off the ground, so now I use persimmon only cooked--baked actually, as my three recipes all involve baking. The grafted ones are significantly bigger and have fewer or no seeds. This is one of the things I'm wondering about the Asian ones--do they have similar seeds? I also wonder if there are any hybrids with much larger fruit than American ones but hardy to zone 6.

I agree that, with American persimmons, I only ever pick fruit from the ground.  And doing so even before the first frost usually provides ripe enough fruit free from astringency.  It's not 100%, but it's good enough.  After colder weather sets in, then its about a 100% guarantee.  I've never gotten the runs before doing this, but then I am blessed with a mostly bullet-proof immune system.

And yes, from what I understand, American-Asian hybrids should do well for you.  I am just planting mine, but I am very excited about them.  Some have more American-type fruit quality, others more Asian-type fruit quality.  But with all hybrids the idea is to combine the tree and fruit characteristics of Asian persimmons with the cold-hardiness of American persimmons.  One of the more commonly available hybrid cultivars is Nikita's Gift, which is advertised as suitable for Zones 5-10.  Which means one should be able to grow it confidently in Zones 6-9.

Check out this excellent podcast to learn all about hybrid persimmons: Orchard People Podcast ep93

Mary Cook wrote:But I agree that USDA is very conservative

Yes, USDA.  Not FDA, as I had written.  Sorry.

Mary Cook wrote:But 45 years ago, local women here in West Virginia told me they just canned tomatoes and jams "open kettle," meaning you got the contents boiling, the jars in boiling water, filled the jars and sealed them and you were done. And I did it that way for years with no ill effects.

Yep.  That is how I do it now, also without ill effects.  Though between us, our sample size of two is hardly a conclusive experiment.  Nonetheless, that is how it has been done for centuries.  I put my trust in the wisdom of ages.  People of past generations may have embraced many non-scientific beliefs, but they weren't stupid - they usually figured out pretty well what practices were and were not safe.

Because I currently only have a single cooking eye, which will be occupied with the boiling jam, I instead sterilize my jars by baking them at 250 during the last 30 minutes of the jam boil.