Outside

For me, cooking a traditional persimmon dish brings spare, yet cozy, homes and holiday celebrations to life. Friends have shared family pudding recipes, while others point me to fabulous books like Euell Gibbons’ Stalking the Wild Asparagus (Hood, 2005), with his recipe for Persimmon-Hickory Nut Bread and Persimmon-Nut Chiffon Pie. Virginia author Susan Tyler Hitchcock’s book Gather Ye Wild Things: A Forager’s Year (University of Virginia Press, 1980) includes recipes for sugarplum fruit cake and persimmon waffles, and she suggests substituting persimmon pulp for applesauce in cakes and breads.

The smell of persimmons and spices drifting through the home can warm the soul during dark winter evenings. And it reminds us of the fun we had collecting them in the crisp, early winter light, the frost-covered ground crunching underfoot. It’s a fruit for these shorter days of the year, when new garden life is least expected, and it connects us with the rich heritage of Virginia’s rustic past. That’s why the persimmon is special—and worth knowing.