The Incredible (Inedibly Astringent) Persimmon: Know This First

A fellow firefighter my husband works with was dated I to eat a 2 pound bag of carrots. He did and ended up in the Emergency Department. He almost had to go to surgery but a doctor had him drink Coke and it fixed the carrot clump block.

fun fact: a kind of boiled down juice/sirup (kaki-shibu), made from inedibly astringent persimmons, is used in japan as a wood finish and preservative, and to waterproof traditional paper umbrellas.

You can ferment them and use it to protect wood from insects. It’s called kakishibu in Japanese.

Mom had a persimmon tree, if you ate one before the first frost, it was bitter but became sweet after it frost hit the fruit, most would fall to the ground. They become very sweet. We would gather them up & remove the seed, bake cookies, pudding & also freeze them for Winter baking. I’ve never bought nor tasted the ones in the grocery store.

Persimmons are an amazing fruit. It always baffled me that they aren't more popular.

I often make a custard by blending some milk with persimmon. Sets very fast, and it tastes like a flan. Haven't died yet.

Thank you for sharing this knowledge. We used to harvest small persimmons out in the woods when they would fall to the ground as a child in Arkansas. The first time I saw the other kind was when I was stationed in Korea. I love them all, they are delicious. I just started buying the hichiya kind from our local Asian market and the cashier was very kind to tell me to wait till they were totally mushy to eat.

I confused an unripe hachiya with a fuyu and ate about half of it before I realized there was something terribly wrong. My esophagus seized up; I tried to drink some water but nothing would pass through. I thought I was having an anaphylactic reaction and might be a goner until I realized that I could still breathe. I calmed down, rinsed out my mouth and laid down. Over the course of an hour or so, the blockage cleared. BTW, I had some protein powder in almond milk about an hour earlier.

Dried persimmons are an excellent snack! I hope this video persuades people who normally don't harvest their persimmons to pick them and give them a try (and share them with the neighborhood)!

Learning about the whole coca-cola thing, just scares me away from that stuff even more. I remember talking to a concrete guy & he told me that they would use concentrated Coca-Cola to etch the concrete instead of muriatic acid, because apparently the coke would eat through the concrete way faster than anything else they've ever seen.

Fascinating. For years, using a tree in a friend's California yard, I would use the very soft when ripe variety and make "Persimmon Pinapple Nut" bread (with a powdered sugar glaze.) I never knew anything about what they were like when not ripened to essentially "mush" in a skin because I never tried them. I'm glad I never did lol 😆 PS. If you want to make the bread, locate your favorite banana bread recipe, replace the bananna with 1 cup of very ripe (mushy juicy) persimmon and add 1 cup canned crushed pineapple (juice squeezed out). Otherwise, follow the bananna bread recipe. I typically use a spring form bundt pan as it makes a perfect circular bread (aka coffee cake), and it's easy to get out of the pan. Typically bake at 350 for 1 hour or until the butter knife comes out almost clean (clean may mean you've baked too long and bread may be dry). It should split on the top like bananna bread. Glaze with powdered sugar glaze (powdered sugar and milk). You can also make this with fresh pureed pumpkin (or Libby's). Just replace the persimmon with 1 cup pumpkin and viola perfect for Fall. Anyway, thanks for the great video!

Interesting. Thanks for the lesson. I grew up in East Texas and at some point my dad planted several American Persimmon (diospyros virginiana) trees around our house and in a wooded area nearby. Of course I didnt realize the latin name or differences from other persimmons until now. As a kid wandering through the woods I would eat these all the time. The ripe ones of course 😀. You dont have to eat them off the ground, there were plenty of ripe ones still on the tree. They are sweet but have an odd flavor that to me wasnt very pleasant. I still ate them but always preferred other forest foods instead like cactus fruits, brazos berries, plumbs, ect. The flying insects (red wasps, honey bees, bumble bees, beetles) LOVED these fruits! I would sit and watch them for hours as they frantically ate as much as possible. That was the day I learned stinging insects dont care about stinging anyone when they are busy foraging for food. You can pick them up and hold them in your hands as long as they have food to occupy their attention. Also the wild hogs. We would collect shovels full of rotting ones from the ground and store them in sealed 5gal buckets to use as hog bait when hunting.

Crazy! Im in new zealand and I ate an entire tree full of them in my backyard!!! Very sweet. Also sweet when they werent ripe yet too

I know somebody who almost died falling off a ladder picking persimmons

Love your video, My grandparents and great grand parents grew these astringent persimmons for many years and I grew up eating my grandmothers famous persimmon cookies made with cinnamon and allspice and a little ginger, but the main ingredient in the recipe is baking soda which is mixed with the persimmons after they have been pureed and the tannins are pretty much neutralized and forms this congealed mixture that when mixed with the rest of the ingredients gives a perfect consistency for cookies or bread very similar to the consistency of banana bread. The recipe also calls for baking powder as well to create a rise in the bake.

We have such a short persimmon season, and I LOVE Hachiyas! We get them in the stores when they're still very astringent. It takes a lot of willpower to let them soften but it's worth it. No puckering, and so sweet!

Wow, I had no idea that people didn’t know about persimmons! I grew up in California and we had a giant hachiya tree in our front yard. My mom made cookies and breads and cake and steamed pudding from them. Also, persimmons are common in the markets here. Mostly fuyus, but increasingly more hachiyas. Lately I’ve been getting really good ones at the farmers market. I’m planning on making persimmon pudding for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Interesting, we have a family friend who is a doctor who told us about this happening to one of his neighbors and she had to have surgery. He said it was because of eating too many and it was basically just too much fiber. I always thought that didn't make any sense to me and now I know why.

I have been eating Persimmons all my life. (Parsi-an) And I have NEVER, EVER heard of such a phenomenon. Need to research this further! But, very interesting and informative video! Thank you for sharing...

Awesome lil video. Good sound, editing, content and smiling friendly faces. Keep making great and interesting videos and we'll keep watching/sharing. Many thanks!