Wild fruit abounds in West Virginia. Native Americans knew this and took full advantage of what they could harvest each spring, summer, and fall to help tide them through the winter. Traditional Appalachian culture knew it, too; from herbs to roots to fruit, our Mountain Mamas (and Maw-Maws) had a recipe for every kind of foraged edible. And that included a late fall fruit that, when eaten in the early stages of rot, earned the nickname “Fruit of the gods.”
The Common American Persimmon, "Diospyros virginiana," is native to the Eastern United States. It grows as a tall, slender tree with dioecious flowers.
This means that the flowers require cross-pollination between male and female trees to produce fruit, and because of this, you'll most likely find fruit-bearing persimmons growing in a grove rather than in isolation.
The fruit hangs on to the branch well after the leaves fall, and you wouldn't want it any other way.
Although there are Asian varieties of persimmons that are not, the American Persimmon is inedibly astringent unless it has been through a frost or has reached a stage of soft, swollen over-ripeness (a condition known as "bletting").
In fact, the fruit is so astringent that if you consume much of it before it is over-ripe, you run the risk of developing a bezoar in your stomach (think giant, hard-as-rock hairball) from all the tannin.
Don't worry, though: your mouth will immediately tell you if the persimmon you've bitten into isn't ripe. The puckery, dry, leathery feeling is unmistakable (don't ask me how I know).
Captain John Smith of Jamestown wrote in his journal about this unique, finicky fruit saying "If a persimmon is not ripe it will draw a man's mouth awrie with much torment... When it is ripe, it is as delicious as an apricot."
The top row of persimmon halves pictured here are non-astringent, Asian varieties. The bottom two, however, are the American Persimmon, and the one on the left is unripe (and inedible), while the soft, mushy one on the right is exactly the type of fruit you want to sink your teeth into.
Once it is over-ripe, the fruit will fall easily from the branch when you shake the slender tree, and the taste is delicious. In fact, It is one of the sweetest of all fruits at 34% sugar content.
Native Americans made a type of fruit leather out of it, and pioneers used it to sweeten desserts.
A few final notes of interest about persimmons: the tree is a species of ebony, and the wood is much desired for use in furniture and musical instruments. The seeds can be roasted and ground as a coffee substitute, and were used as buttons In the Civil War. The leaves have been used for tea.
Have you ever tried a persimmon? You can find them ripening from late September all the way through November in some areas; but like we said above, just make sure they’re nice and soft before you try them (they will ripen on the counter if you do happen to get your hands on one that doesn’t seem quite squishy enough). You can learn more about persimmons, bezoars, and the like on Wikipedia here.
Not into wild fruit? Then head on over to Fish Hawk Acres Market in Buckhannon and purchase some tasty, local fruit to enjoy instead.
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