It’s Fall and the persimmons are ripening into shades of orange. The trees around here are filled with them. Growing up the only thing I knew about persimmons is you could make pudding with them. Something we never did at my house.
Flash forward and it turns out there are lots of kinds of persimmons and lots of uses for them. American persimmons are small (like a golf ball) while Asian persimmons are larger (like a tomato). This article offers a basic overview of the differences.
Last year around this time I posted in my Buy Nothing group to see if anyone had a persimmon tree I could harvest. Of course, someone did. They didn’t know much about the fruit and weren’t even sure it was a persimmon tree, but it looked liked the pictures I posted. They never ate them, but said deer seemed to like the fruit. I drove over to find a small orchard of American persimmon trees. I filled a bag with them. I showed the homeowner how to tell if they were ripe and said they make a decent jam.
Since I had a bag of American persimmons rather than Asian persimmons, my plan for slicing them to eat wasn’t going to work and I wasn’t going to make pudding or jam. I searched for ideas, and boy did I find them. Smoothies, breads, cookies, risotto, with pork, with brie on crostini, etc. Martha Stewart published a list of 12 gorgeous ideas.
While I would love to be an ambitious cook, I’m not. Removing the seeds from American persimmons is a drag. I decided on an easier course of action. I filled my everyday pan with water and the fruit (which I washed first). I let it simmer for awhile and then mashed the fruit into the water. I then drained the mix through a mesh sieve so I was left with just the fluid. I added sugar and heated the mix enough for the sugar to melt. And voila, persimmon simple syrup perfect for Fall bourbon cocktails like this Old Fashioned or if that isn’t your jam you can try one of these 7 cocktail options.
If you live in the U.S. Southeast you probably live near a persimmon tree filled with fruit. Look around for them, ask if it’s okay to harvest a few, and get your persimmon on however feels right to you.
