I came home from thanksgiving with a giant bag of persimmons. Did I stop at the grocery store or the produce store? Nope. It was just my parting gift. The hosts from thanksgiving have this amazing persimmon tree in their front yard.  Actually, they have two, but the one in the backyard is not so fruitful. But this one tree alone, produced about 500 fruits this year. Can you believe that? From one tree?

Persimmons are a strange fruit. I don’t tend to meet many americans who are familiar with it, let alone who have eaten it. I grew up with them, so it’s one of my favorites. But also a fruit I eat very rarely. They’re not abundantly available in stores, you have to look for them.

There are distinct varieties, and the ones from this tree are of the nonastringent variety. It sounds very clinical, I know, but it really isn’t. Basically, an unripe persimmon cannot be enjoyed. If you eat an unripe persimmon, it will leave your mouth feeling and tasting fuzzy. It’s an extremely unpleasant feeling. I do not recommend it, even on a dare. But in a nonastringent type of persimmon, there’s less of this fuzziness initially, so you don’t have to wait so long for them to be edible. And these types are actually sort of crunchy, like an apple or a pear. But the astringent ones, you have to wait until they are soft and mushy. And once they are, they are amazing. And what does a persimmon taste like? Well, it tastes like a persimmon. There’s nothing you can compare it to! Like an apple taste like an apple and an orange tastes like an orange, a persimmon simply tastes like a persimmon.

I spent most of the weekend being a Geek on Call. My mom’s computer got a virus and it took forever for me to fix it. After performing my daughterly tech duties, I decided to pilfer some cherries. Then I saw this. WTF? This made me sad.