Kaki
I have some news for you all. Persimmons are a Gifu product. It’s true! The grow a lot of persimmons here. You want to know how I know this? Because danielle and I can’t seem to go a day without somebody giving us some persimmons. It has been rather crazy.
Neither Danielle nor I had ever had a Persimmon before coming to Japan. At first people were rather surprised of this and gave us a few to try. Before we could let our first few ripen, however, we had gotten 11, and they wouldn’t stop coming. We felt a little bad, but when one of our american friends tried to give us a bag he had gotten cheap, we both screamed.
“Hey, I saw a stand selling farm fresh persimmons and I though of yo..”
“NOOOOOOO!”
It was actually quite nice of him, and if not for the circumstances would have be really really appreciated. However, we have more than enough persimmons, and he was one person we could (not so) tactfully refuse. There are many we can not, for example, our landlady has twice given us two or three. Just today, my school nurse chased me down in the parking lot with a bag. She was so cute, “Aaron sensei, Aaron Sensei! Kaki, wakarimasu ka?” (Aaron, do you know persimmons?) I had a confused look on my face for a split second as I struggled to remember what a kaki was, they have only ripened recently and I have trouble remembering this vocabulary. I remembered but it must have show on my face because she looked a bit taken aback, “Ah, kirai desu ka?” (oh! you hate them?) she looked a bit hurt. No, No, I assured her I like them very much. “oh” she smiled, “douzo” and she handed over a bag full of persimmons.
I think the problem is that many people in Gifu have persimmon trees. In fact you can hardly go a few blocks without being able to find a persimmon tree. So what can they do with all of these fruits? Most everyone in Gifu either has, or has a family member who has, a tree. Except us. So we are the likely target for all excess persimmons. Which in some ways is nice, I have tried them now and they are quite good. Now if we can each eat a dozen persimmons in the next few days…
Why not make persimmon jelly?
Dad
When life gives you lemons make lemonade. When life gives you persimmons make persimmon jelly?
This is a good idea, except, because we have been getting the persimmons slowly we haven’t really had one time in which they were all ripe. Usally they are ripening kind of slowly so that we only have a couple ripe at any one time. Good for eating, not so good for cooking or for jelling. Also I may just be a little terrified of trying to find some pectin in the japanese grocery.
Sounds like tomatoes and zucchini here. I used to get both of these anonymously placed on my patio table in my old neighborhood.
We had persimmon trees in the memorial garden at my old church. I think someone used to make a quite famous persimmon pie. I will look in the church cookbook and see if I can find it.
Count your riches! We were at the Jewel grocery store in Chicago and today the persimmons were on special–4 for $3.
Can you speed up the ripening process by putting them in a paper bag? Yup, sounds just like zucchini!
Tagging you with the Seven Random Things meme. Rules are at my site. Don’t participate, and you’ll receive even more persimmons! =)
Have I just made an extremist comment?
OK. It was Persimmon Pudding. Still sending recipe. Sounds kind of good and stuff you might be able to find a little easier that pectin.
Viriginia, I have no idea why your comment got sent to spam. Must have been the numbers and dollar signs. Very strange!
OK, today I bought four persimmions to eat at Thanksgiving. It will be a way of “sharing” the holiday to you. But they weren’t from Gifu. From someplace called Fuyan. (Where’s that geographer?)