Fruits - Persimmons : Introduction

Persimmon most commonly refers to the edible fruit borne by some species of the genus Diospyros. They are also known as kaki (D. kaki), sharon fruit (D. kaki, a trademark name, exclusively reserved for persimmons grown in Israel), black sapote, mabolo or velvet-apple, date-plum (D. lotus), Texas persimmon and American persimmon. The term is also used to refer to the trees bearing the fruit.
The word persimmon comes from an Algonquian language of the eastern United States, meaning "a dry fruit."


Fruit

American Persimmon flower

Persimmons tend to be light yellow-orange to dark red-orange in colour and vary from 2-8 cm in diameter according to species. The calyx often remains attached to the fruit after picking. They may be spherical, acorn or pumpkin-shaped depending on the variety. They are eaten fresh, dried, cooked and canned. They are high in glucose and protein, and also have various medicinal and chemical uses.

There are generally two types of fruit, those that are astringent until extremely ripe and those bearing non-astringent fruit.

 

A persimmon orchard in Japan

Astringent forms contain high levels of soluble tannins and cannot be eaten until custard-soft unless the astringency has been removed either artificially or by an after-ripening of light exposure to frost over a few days; this process is known as bletting. The edibility of astringent forms is much improved when the fruit is dried.

Non-astringent forms are less astringent when unripe and lose their astringency earlier. They can be eaten at various stages of firmness, from very hard to very soft.


Commercial forms include:

    *

      Astringent:
          o

            Korean
          o

            Hachiya
    *

      Nonastringent:
          o

            Fuyu or Japanese Persimmon
          o

            Jiro
          o

            Hanagos

Species

kaki - Persimmon

Kaki Persimmon / Kaki Fruit (柿 (kaki) in Japanese) (D. kaki) is the most widely cultivated species, grown for its delicious fruit (see below). This species, native to China, is deciduous with broad, stiff leaves. Cultivation for the fruit extended first to other parts of east Asia, and was later introduced to California and southern Europe in the 1800s.

American Persimmon (D. virginiana) is native to eastern North America. Colloquially known as a "pawdad".

Black persimmon or Black sapote (D. digyna) is native to Mexico. Its fruit has green skin and white flesh which turns black when ripe.

Mabolo or Velvet-apple (D. discolor) is native to the Philippines. It is bright red when ripe.

Japanese Persimmon (cultivar 'Hachiya') - watercolor 1887

Date-plum (D. lotus) is native to southwest Asia and southeast Europe. It was known to the ancient Greeks as "the fruit of the Gods", i.e. Dios pyros (lit. "the wheat of Zeus"), hence the scientific name of the genus. Its English name derives from the small fruit, which has a taste reminiscent of both plums and dates. This variety is mentioned in the Odyssey; it was so delicious that those who ate it forgot about returning home and wanted to stay and eat lotus with the lotus-eaters.

There are many other species of persimmons that are not edible to humans.


source : hydroponicsearch