Fruit
Persimmon
CaquiCaquiDiospyros kaki
There are two kinds: the old-fashioned one, eaten with a spoon when it's soft as jelly, and the «persimon», eaten firm like an apple. Bite a soft-type one too early and your mouth turns to sandpaper.
When
Around: Oct–Dec · At its best: Oct–Nov
Around: Oct–Dec · At its best: Oct–Nov
Around: Apr–Jun · At its best: Apr–May
Around here
In Catalonia persimmons are mostly a garden and farmhouse tree: in autumn it drops its leaves and stays loaded with orange globes. The big growing area is in Valencia, with the Kaki Ribera del Xúquer PDO and its Rojo Brillante variety, the one sold firm as persimon.
At the market
- To eat now with a spoon: soft to the touch, thin almost translucent skin, deep orange.
- Persimon (firm type): even orange, no green patches, hard but not woody.
- The greenish-brown calyx should still be firmly attached.
- Soft ones squash easily: check they're not split or mouldy.
At home
- Firm ones of the soft type ripen at room temperature in a few days; next to an apple, faster.
- Once ripe, into the fridge, and eat within two or three days.
- Persimon keeps a week out and two in the fridge.
If you have too much
- Freeze them whole and ripe: half-thawed you eat them with a spoon like sorbet.
- Blitzed pulp frozen in jars, for cakes, smoothies or yoghurt.
- Dried Japanese-style (hoshigaki): peeled, hung on string somewhere dry and airy for a few weeks.
In the kitchen
- Halved and eaten by the spoonful, just like that.
- Sliced persimon with pomegranate, walnuts and a little fresh cheese.
- Persimmon smoothie with yoghurt or milk.
- Persimmon cake: the pulp replaces some of the oil and sugar.
- Diced persimon with cured ham, as you would with melon.
What it brings
Per 100 g, raw.
- Energy
- 70 kcal
- Water
- 80% water
- Carbs
- 18.6 g
- Sugars
- 12.5 g
- Fibre
- 3.6 g
- Protein
- 0.6 g
Stands out for
- Source of fibre3.6 g
Data from the USDA (FoodData Central). See the full table ↗ · How we decide what stands out
Goes with
- PomegranateSept–DecA jewel box with hundreds of seeds. There's a trick to getting them out, and once you know it you won't stain your shirt again.
- MandarinOct–MarThe fruit you peel without a knife that leaves your hands smelling of winter. Almost all the ones sold here are clementines, a type of mandarin.
- ChestnutOct–DecBefore potatoes, chestnuts were winter bread in many European mountains. Today they mostly mean smoke in the street and hot newspaper cones in your hands.
- AppleAug–FebIt's harvested in late summer and autumn, but cold stores keep it on sale all year. In season, freshly picked, it crunches differently.