#persimmon pudding

Choctaw persimmon pudding from Spirit of the Harvest: North American Indian Cooking by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs

My most labor intensive recipes of the year involve white walnuts (butternuts) and persimmons

The walnuts show up first. I start gathering them during Mezi Matičkama (this period starts on the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on August 15th) when they are falling on the ground. I only gather them if they’ve already hit the ground, or if they fall out when I shake a branch. That means they’ll be soft enough to hull.

I hull mine by rolling them under my feet in shoes I don’t care about—because the juices coming out of these guys will stain everything—including your hands and nails, which will stay stained for at least a month, and nothing, I repeat NOTHING but time will remove the stains. Wear gloves. Wear sturdy gloves that will not tear. This year taking precautions I still stained one of my thumbs. Make sure you lay down a mat if you don’t want to stain your porch or wherever. Wear clothes you don’t care about, because somehow the juices will end up on your clothes.

Once the nuts are hulled line them up on a tray, in one layer, preferably not touching. They mold easily and this will stop it from spreading to your whole harvest—which you just spent a good amount of time hulling!

Leave them in a cool well ventilated space for 3-4 weeks. When they are cured/dried you are supposed to be able to hear them rattle in their shell. When I tested mine today I couldn’t hear a rattle, so I busted one open and it was good to go. 🤷‍♀️ So I went ahead and cracked them all. These are very pretty nuts if you can crack the shell without cracking the meat. It’s a skill. And to be honest, I don’t really care cuz I’m chopping them anyway. So when I realized this morning that I could use a bench vise in the garage to crush those bastards, I went for it. Because these shells are hard as a rock!

If you’ve planned well (which I DID NOT) you probably will have the 1/2 cup of chopped nuts you need for persimmon pudding before you’ve even harvested your persimmons.

Which it is now time to do. If you’re lucky you have some early producing trees. I have one, down in the valley (I’m not sharing any clearer of a location) that produces massive amounts of fruit before St. Wenceslas and Michaelmas, and one spindly one at my mom’s that doesn’t produce much at all.

Just like the walnuts, you’re not looking up in the tree, you’re looking down on the ground. Generally, if it’s on the ground it’s good. Still on the tree, there’s a chance it’s going to be bitter and astringent. On the ground sweeeeet, honey and caramel and apricot custard. I mostly want the ones that look blue and bruised for purée and a small amount of the more peachy color to pickle. I’ve read others saying that you can’t pickle American persimmons, that they’ll fall apart, but I made some a couple of years ago that I was very pleased with.

Ok. So processing these bad boys into purée to bake with the white walnuts is going to be messy. It’s just a fact. I don’t have a food mill, but I always have a ricer, so that’s what I’m in the habit of doing. Pull the calyx off (the leafy bit at the top) and place four persimmons upside down and push them through the ricer. Open it, scrape the contents back into the cup and press one more time. You won’t get too much out this second time, but hey, even a tablespoon counts. This takes a long time, but the less fruit in the ricer the more room it has to expand as it is pressed, and the more fruit makes contact with the holes. Now scrape the remains out and toss them—although I have ideas about turning this waste into soup, I’ll just have to figure out the best way to remove the seeds. Speaking of the seeds, make sure you save some for weather divination.

After I’m done puréing in the ricer, I like to run it through the blender with a little water until it’s nice and smooth.

Now it’s time to bake!

Everything seems to move so quickly now. I use this recipe.

First I mix the wet ingredients. Then you’re supposed to do the dry ingredients separately but I never do. I just don’t want to dirty up an extra dish! 😜 So next I cream in the sugar, then the flour, then the salt and baking soda, and then nuts. Then I scrape it into the baking dish. I was supposed to use a 9-inch pan, but mine is 8-inch, so I filled a ramekin as well. I baked it for an hour—and finally after over a month my persimmon white walnut pudding was ready! Just in time for Michaelmas/St. Wenceslas.

I like mine with whipped cream.

Persimmon Pudding