Tuesday 2 October 2007

A Most Useless Fruit......


....is the Persimmon! It ought to be otherwise, the very name suggesting something exotic and spicy, with a Shakespearian vision of the fruit piled high on a Venetian wharf, and freshly delivered by the bushel from the mysterious Orient.....

Not so.

The mysterious Orient bit is largely true, since the variety most often found these days was introduced to the West from Japan, but that wasn't until the 1800's, when it was transported by the redoubtable Commander Perry - who seems to have got about a bit. There was a native american version kicking around before that, apparently, from which the word 'Persimmon' is derived - a bastardisation of its name amongst the Algonquin Indians - and this is the name it has in Britain and the US. Elsewhere, it seems to have retained its japanese name of Kaki - and this is the name by which it is roundly cursed as the bane of my life every year at this season.

We have a Kaki tree in the garden - inherited, and of some age - which has now been trimmed and pruned and trained to become a very handsome thing. The only problem is the fruit. Vast quantities of the stuff. Tasteless and without purpose in the kitchen, it grows fat and threatening in the course of September, and then begins to rain down upon whatever is below. ....

Normally, we try and remove all of the unripe fruit in August, when it's still small and manageable - last year, there were thirteen bin-liners full of hard, green, plum-sized examples - but, for some reason, this year that particular task got overlooked. We now have a glut! Hundreds and hundreds of the things, dangling there, just waiting to plummet and burst on the paving stones below, to leave disastrous-looking globs of day-glo orange jelly everywhere, like the leavings of some invading alien force from Quatermass! I take my life in my hands if I walk under the tree after dark, en route to collecting a lemon or some bay leaves, and every time expect a gelatinous explosion on my head as I do so......and the first and messy task every morning is to clear away the detritus from the night before, before the sugar inside the fruit turns the paving stones irremediably to black...

Elizabeth Schneider gives a few (rather unconvincing) recipes for Kaki in her Uncommon Fruit- although clearly it's for a different variety, since her's have a pointed end, which mine don't - and I read once in Harold Magee that if you wrap them in clingfilm and bake them in a very low oven for twelve hours or so you can render them decently edible (but why would you go to all that trouble?). Giuliano Bugialli has recipes for both a Persimmon Cake and a Persimmon Cream in his Tuscan book, but again it reads like an awful lot of work for a rather ho-hum result. (OK, I admit it - I'm biased against the damned things!I've trodden too many times in too much orange mush for it to be otherwise.....!)

No. What's needed is a spray that will take the blossom out when it first appears in spring, and thus stop the whole process before it's started. I've tentatively enquired in the past about the existence of such a thing.......but I've found that the idea of destroying a crop at birth isn't designed to bring a smile to the face of any horticulturalist. Reminiscent of the time I was asking a succession of wideboy shop assistants in Tottenham Court Road if they had such a thing as a mobile-phone-jammer (the Technical Department had suffered in too many restaurants and on too many trains, and wanted one for Christmas). Not surprisingly, I suppose, I didn't have any great luck there, either....

Tonight's Dinner:

Tarts of Clams and Mussels

Baked Sea Bass in Anchovy Sauce, with Fagiolini

-
all washed down with a rather interesting 1999 Radikon

Ricotta and Praline Cream, with fresh Raspberries

7 comments:

Joanna said...

And I'd always thought it was just that they didn't travel that made them so tasteless.

Some time ago, you asked for recipes for pomegranates, saying that those you had been given in the past were just garnish. I think this counts, although I am standing by to be corrected:

Pomegranate Ice-cream

Juice two pomegranates and a lime. Strain. Whisk in 175g icing sugar. Beat in 500ml double cream, and keep beating to soft peaks. Freeze in an airtight container for at least four hours. No need to churn.

From Nigella Express - I thought of you the instant I read it ... let me know if it counts!

Joanna
joannasfood.blogspot.com

Pomiane said...

Interesting. And timely - since the pomegranates are ripening on the tree as we speak, and I happen to have some limes in the crisper. Nigella's Bitter Orange Ice Cream (which, incidentally is also a non-churn variety) is very good, so this promises well. Many thanks.....I'll let you know what happens....

Anonymous said...

And whats the verdict on the Radikon?

Pomiane said...

How was the Radikon? Interesting, for the fact that it is produced entirely in the 'old' way - i.e no chemicals, no temperature adjustments as part of the production process, and no filtration. For a 'white' wine it is a rather astonishing orange colour, which is then almost shockingly dry in the mouth, when the colour would lead you to expect something rather syrupy. Beyond that, though, it was a bit of a disappointment - having checked tasting notes for this vintage online, it wasn't possible to discern any of the complex flavours mentioned, and a separate note from a year ago by somebody who had sampled the same vintage was already at that time saying they thought it was past it. Sadly, we concluded the same.....which is not to say that the great generosity of the people who gave us the bottle isn't hugely appreciated, if only for the interest factor......

froginbritain said...

We had a 'kaki' fruit tree in our garden in France - no-one paid any attention to it until a crew of portugese builders noticed it. From them on, we were very popular with them as they came along to pick the fruits with ravenous faces. I now just found out that the spelling is 'caqui'. You will find a few references/recipe ideas on the internet, even an association with some recipes:
http://www.appckaki.com/map_receitas_us.htm
Hope you may find a tasty use for your beautiful caqui fruits.
PS - tried and loved your strawberries in balsamic: seriously good but no such success with the asparagus mousse... i can't get it to hold very well but will keep trying. I served it in a middle of a plate of crab bisque and the mixture was excellent.

Pomiane said...

Glad you like the Strawberries in Balsamic treatment - I thought it was a spld=ndid discovery. Re Asparagus Mousse, I thnk you'll find it's a question of timing in relation to how energetically you're steaming the things; I made them as a starter a few days ago, and I think they probably cooked on that occasion for as much as 14 minutes, so I must have had the steamer working more slowly than usual. I can tell they're done when they swell slightly and the top is noticeably 'dry' to the eye.

Kim McKenzie Galvez said...

Persimmon/kaki. I love the tree especially since it grows in our zone yet is rare. Freezing the fruit and cutting in half and spooning out semi freddo is delish. And the Chinese dry them and sell them at New Year. Dried, they have a powdery sugar that coats them and a much stronger flavour. You can them soak them and have them as compote, or eat to strengthen your lungs, for they make cough syrups from it. I love them at all their stages.