The arrival of homemade persimmon cookies, baked and mailed by my grandmother each winter, was one of the Christmas highlights of my childhood. Layered in a shoebox lined with wax paper, crumpled newspapers cushioning the bounty, these puffy golden creations have a subtle hint of holiday spices and a generous serving of raisins and walnuts.
Persimmons are usually available at farmers markets and better grocery stores in late autumn after the first frost. I’ve always preferred the baseball-sized Hachiya variety with a pointed bottom, the kind my grandparents grew in their front yard, but lately I’ve kept an eye out in the woods for wild persimmons that drop to the ground when ripe, a discovery I made thanks to an off-the-cuff remark on an off-roading tour through the marshes of the Southern coast.
In 2018, during my week as the Garden & Gun artist-in-residence at Palmetto Bluff in South Carolina, I got to know Jay Walea, director of the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy, as we bounced through a tour of the wetlands and pine groves in his mud-splattered Chevy Silverado pickup. Jay pointed out eagles, hawks, and barred owls, but was taken aback when I queried him about wild persimmons. “Hold on there,” he said as he hit the brakes hard. He sized me up and seemed to ponder a private thought. “Are you also a wild persimmon fan? That’s my great secret out here in the woods. Let’s go see my hidden trees—they should be pretty near ripening up.”
We found some ping-pong-ball-sized persimmons scattered on the ground, still a little firm, and I collected a few handfuls in the windbreaker I carried. He leaned over to me with another confidential tip. “I know a better spot a mile or so away, if you have the time.” Sadly I had to get back to the cottage to prep for my afternoon biscuit class, so I bowed out of the extended tour, immediately regretting my decision when I thought of the bounty I would miss. Later, after I returned from a grocery store run in Bluffton for biscuit making supplies, a welcome surprise greeted me at my door. Atop a large wire basket overflowing with wild persimmons was a hand-scrawled note on the back of a hardware store receipt: “I didn’t want you to miss out on these. ”
Persimmons are very acidic and bitter until extremely soft and squishy, when they quickly shift from mouth-puckering to syrupy sweet. My solution for speeding up the process: When the persimmons start to soften enough that I can make an indentation when squeezing them, I put two or three large whole persimmons into a plastic bag for a few weeks in the freezer. When brought to room temperature, the pulp is easy to remove: Just cut off the top and squeeze into a bowl, scraping the insides of the fruit with a spoon. The pulp freezes well and can be used as needed after bringing back to room temperature.
One large Hachiya persimmon yields slightly less than half a cup of fruit. If you’re using the smaller wild persimmons, it’ll take forty or so to get enough pulp for this recipe; follow the same procedure to ripen in the freezer, then bring to room temp, remove the seeds, and press through a strainer. Send them to family members at the holidays—they’ll remember and a new tradition will commence.
