Stories of Persimmons

A bag full of freshly picked persimmons arrived from my friend's co-worker's percimmon tree.
For some reason, I had an image that percimmon is a Japanese fruit, but it actually originates in China. Nowadays, persimmons are very popular in Korea as well, so you can find large, tasty percimmons at most Asian supermarkets.

There are two kinds of percimmons, sweet ones and bitter ones. It has something to do with the tannin, but not sure about the detail. The bitter ones are too bitter to eat as is, but my grandmother used to air them outside under the roof, and after a while, the percimmons dry out covered with white powders, and that is the sign that the bitter percimmons have turned into sweet dried fruits.

Of course, the ones I received this time were the sweet ones with less seeds, so all I had to do was to peel and eat!

There used to be a small park with percimmon tree next to my parents' house in Japan, and every fall, my brother and I used to pick them. The funny thing was, every year, the percimmons took turns in taste, sweet and bitter. For example, if they were sweet this year, they would be bitter next year. I'm not sure if that's an usual thing for percimmon trees to do, but we were surely disappointed in bitter years.

The sad thing is, the park is now gone, and a large apartment building is standing after where the percimmon tree was. Memory...

Here is the picture of percimmon tart I made earlier this year. Fresh ripened percimmon flesh over creme parissier filled tart shell. Maybe I should make one before Aibo-kun and I finish eating up all the percimmons!