November 12, 2013 (Tuesday)
Dwight came back from his daily walk the other day with a couple of persimmons given to him by a nice neighbor, who told him they would be ready to eat when they get soft.
When I was a kid in Junior High School, my walk home every day took me by a small persimmon tree next to the sidewalk. Seems like there were always persimmons on it. One would think the kids on the way home would pick the fruit–that would have been normal behavior in those days in that neighborhood with those kids. But nobody bothered the persimmons. Perhaps they knew that persimmons still on the tree are not ripe and therefore have an astringent effect if eaten, shrinking and constricting the tissues of the mouth together–in other words, causing a pucker that’s worth writing home about. I’m sure the kids had learned to leave them alone until they fell to the ground, and could be considered OK to eat.
The astringent nature of the persimmon has caused it to become a folk medicine, providing help for certain minor health problems. Many people, however, hail the fruit as a cure for cancer and other serious illnesses.
The fruit provides a basis for name-calling like, “he’s a puckered old persimmon!”
The seeds have been used to predict the weather. When you cut open a persimmon seed, it seems to look like a knife, a spoon or a fork. If it looks like a knife, the weather will be cold and icy. A spoon says we can count on wet weather, including lots of snow. A fork predicts a mild winter. I don’t know if there is anything to the idea, but who really knows?
In the meantime, our new persimmons sit side by side on the kitchen counter, awaiting our fateful decision. “To eat or not to eat, that is the question.”
