PERSIMMON PUDDING
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Some of my tastiest recipes come from dear friends. Every Thanksgiving I bake Polly’s Zucchini Bread. To my neighbor Anne’s Sweet Potato Casserole, I add a hefty glug of Maker’s Mark, as she directed. My favorite Christmas dessert is Gael’s Steamed Cranberry Pudding. All delicious, traditional, nostalgic.
A few weeks ago I was lunching with Martha and Sandy at Alisson's in Dock Square when in walks long-time local pal Tammy who was joining her gang for lunch. She stopped to say hello, then added, “I’m off to Trader Joe’s after lunch to buy persimmons. Anyone want any?”
Why in God’s name would I want a persimmon? My skeptical expression caught Tammy’s eye and she said, “Every year this time I make Persimmon Pudding — it’s an old recipe of my mom’s. She was a good cook but neither of us could bake to save our souls — except for this pudding.” Tammy added that she started the tradition of making it several years ago as a tribute to her mom. “Even my oldest son Ty who lives in Salt Lake requested the recipe.”
Suddenly, I wanted — and desperately needed — the recipe.
Since sister Robin was visiting (admittedly, she has a soul similar to Tammy’s), I decided it would be the perfect project for her. Off we drove to Trader Joe’s and located the huge wooden bin overflowing with burnt orange tomato-looking things. We noticed a beautiful young woman picking through the pile, lightly squeezing certain orange orbs, then gently placing some back. She sure looked like she knew what she was doing.
“How do you tell if they’re ripe?” I asked, and received a quick tutorial, delivered with a charming foreign accent. So I asked, “Where are you from?” “Belarus,” she answered. “Ah, yes,” I said, realizing I probably knew more about persimmons at that point than the actual location of Belarus. “Try to find ones that are somewhat soft,” she said.
Good luck on that. Every one we felt had the pliancy of a cannonball.
Ultimately and after digging deep into the large container, Robin and I returned to the Wells woods cradling a paper bag loaded with persimmons as hard as my granite counters. Over the next few days I moved them from one sunny windowsill to another, then to the hearth of the gas fireplace. I even considered putting them atop our heated mattress pad.
Nada.
In desperation, I texted Tammy. I didn’t want to accuse her or the lovely Belarus woman of buying the only ripe persimmons in Maine (although I did wonder….), so I just told her my tale of woe. “Yeah, that’s a problem,” she admitted.
Robin decided to go ahead and make the stuff anyway, arduously slicing and dicing the fruit with a scalpel-sharp knife that could easily etch my glass sliders. “I might activate my gardening elbow doing this,” she noted. She mixed them and the other ingredients in a large mixing bowl, then popped the pudding into the oven. We spent most of the hour-long cooking time staring through the oven window.
Gotta tell you: that pudding was the best tasting concoction I’ve had in years. It’s now in my culinary stable. I’ll happily send you the recipe with this caveat: if you decide to make this unusual and tasty pudding, buy the persimmons in August so they have time to ripen by December 1.
