For the next few weeks, I'm a country mouse before I move to NJ with my new husband. This land, where I grew up, is covered in wild persimmon trees, so I decided to try my hand at baking with them. Word to the wise: maybe don't use wild persimmons if you want to take this on. They're about the size of golfballs, and probably 90% of their volume is comprised of seeds. Don't say I didn't warn you...
The horses "helped" by trying to eat the bag.
Pippin--my intrepid pathfinder--and I traipsed all over the 60 acres and found 3 good-sized persimmon trees. Of course, this means that the fruit is all a minimum of 25 feet off the ground. Let me remind you that I'm 4'11".
The fruit is up so high, in fact, that when it falls off the branch, it hits the ground like a minor explosive device. I thought I'd forage off the "ground-fruit" since I couldn't reach the branches, but most had either exploded or were well along the rotting trajectory. So I ventured onward.
Pippin, the Intrepid Pathfinder
Just as I was questioning the feasibility of this baking excursion, I saw it: a persimmon tree. With branches way, way up....and one that had fallen down onto a smaller tree! I wrestled with the limb until I was able to get it on the ground and harvest as much fruit as I could.
JACKPOT!!
Then I walked through the woods, looking like a dingbat carrying my oversized plastic Belk bag, weighed down with persimmons. To make matters worse, I started thinking about how beautiful it is out there; since I'm moving to NJ in a few weeks, and my parents' house is on the market, I have no idea when I'll get to see this land and this view again, if ever, so I just stood there and cried. Then we saw 2 deer and a very cool spider. The deer and the spider saw a red-eyed, puffy-faced, sniffling girl who was talking to herself, so they're probably writing in their blogs about me right now.
Why, yes, we've been walking in the woods and meadows. How could you tell?
Once we got back to the house, I soaked the persimmons to get the bugs off, etc. The more rotten ones I had picked first were on the bottom of my bag, so they had gotten smashed by the weight of the others. Thank goodness it was plastic, not canvas. While the persimmons soaked, I tried to get some of the stick-tights off my pants and shoes, and Pippin's face. I bet you wish you were there, because you've probably heard tales about how well-behaved Pip is when it comes to being groomed-- ha!
After about an hour of soaking, I drained and dried the fruit on paper towels. Because I had forgotten that I'd need eggs for my recipe and had only hours before hard-boiled every egg in the house, I had to wait to bake until I could refill my supply. These are the moments a girl wishes for chickens...
Once I got the eggs, I got started. I adapted a recipe from a southern Appalachian cookbook of my grandmother's, called Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread and Scuppernong Wine, by Joseph Dabney. By "adapted", I mean "followed loosely, but would have had better results if I followed more closely."
Step 1: Figure out what to do with the persimmons. This is where using the non-wild variety would come in handy, because they're HUGE in comparison. I used a paring knife to peel them, cut them in half, and pull the flesh from the seeds. The seeds are also inside a little membrane, so I pulled those off just to get more "meat."
A 1-cup measure, shown with the amount of meat from one persimmon. Seriously, they're 90% seed. It took about 30 persimmons to make the (barely) heaping cup needed for the recipe, and a solid 2 hours.
Step 2: Follow instructions Do your own thing. I "adapted" the recipe, particularly the sugar content. This is for two reasons: 1) we don't like things super sweet, and 2) my parents currently have a "use it up" policy with these sugar packets, and I just wasn't up to opening another 16 of them. At your next cocktail party, you can impress everyone with your knowledge of how many sugar packets go into 1 cup. Hint, it's 64.
The recipe was for "Rabun County Persimmon Loaf", but my dad and I joked that it turned out with a consistency more like fudge, although it tasted pretty good. Very chewy and dense, but I am pretty famous in my family for making doorstops any time I try to make bread. It's a fun family joke that I can never rise above [haha, RISE-- bread pun!]...[sigh]. I also added spices, 1/2 tsp each of nutmeg and allspice in addition to the cinnamon it called for. I added a splash more milk, since the 1/2 cup didn't quite get all the dry ingredients wet enough to form a dough. Any of these changes could have made it doorstoppy I s'pose.
The consistency issue could stem from the fact that when the recipe said "flour", I grabbed the only kind of flour we had, All-Purpose. The recipe didn't call for soda or yeast, so it probably meant Self-Rising flour. I guess everyone in Rabun County knows that and I'm just a ditzy city mouse.
Upon completing this self-assigned persimmon task, I was informed that there are 3 healthy, fruitful (literally) persimmon trees within 30 yards of the house. But Pippin and I enjoyed our excursion, stick-tights and all!
