Persimmon Bread

The spoons just keep coming in  the ripe persimmon seeds!  Just in case the persimmon prognosticator is correct and we are in for a winter with lots of snow, Grandpa and I have the wood cut and piled and covered.  We even had a good portion of it split and ready for the wood stove.  What is the old saying?  Wood heats you twice:  once when you split it and again when you burn it.

So while you are sitting next to that crackling fire and enjoying a snug room on a cold day, bake some persimmon bread!  This recipe came from the book Foxfire 3. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1975. 

1/3 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp soda
1 cup mashed persimmons
1/2 cup walnuts

Cream shortening, add sugar and eggs; beat well. Sift dry ingredients, add to creamed mixture alternately with persimmons and nuts. Pour in a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

(note: if the batter is a bit thick, add a small amount of buttermilk to make it the consistency of banana bread.)

Persimmons: Sweet and Puckery Prognosticators

The first frosts have come and with them the wild persimmons have ripened.  Those of us who like to forage in the woods for wild things to eat have a veritable treasure of sweet goodness from the persimmon just waiting for us.  You can tell if a native persimmon is ripe because it will be soft and a bit on the brown side.  But don't let the brownish color of these plum sized  fruits fool you; they are sweet when ripe.  Persimmons must be picked and eaten at just the right time.  If picked and eaten too early, the astringent tannins in the fruit will make you pucker and will lock your jaw.  But if you wait a day or two the fruit is tasty and sweet.  You only have to eat a green persimmon once to learn to tell when the fruit is ripe!  Soft is ripe.

Captain John Smith had this to say about the native persimmon, Diospyros Virginiana, " If it be not ripe it will drawe a mans mouth awrie with much torment; but when it is ripe, it is as delicious as an apricook."  The first settlers at Jamestown not only ate the fruit but also drank it.  The seeds could be used as a substitute coffee and the fruit itself was used for making beer.  Native Americans used the astringent qualities of the fruit and the bark of the tree to treat burns and would make a kind of gargle from it to use for infections in the throat and mouth.

Today we not only eat these delicious native fruits, but we "old timers" use them to predict the weather.  If you cut open one of the brown seeds inside the fruit, you will see an image of a knife, a fork or a spoon.  If you see a fork, the winter will be mild and dry.  The image of a knife prognosticates a cold, sharp winter with winds that "cut through you like a knife."  However, if you see a spoon, expect plenty of snow.  You will have to shovel it all winter long.  I don't know if the legend holds true, but our family living in Christian County said they saw spoons in the persimmons there. Just in case it is, I think I'll  find the snow shovel and get the ice melt ready!