How To Pick & Prepare Persimmons: A Nutritious Fruit With A Rich Cultural History

In Korea, folktales reflect the enduring culture of our people, thoughts and dreams about nature, and the relationship between humans and nature.

One of my favorite folktales is the "Tiger and Persimmon" because tigers in Korea are a symbol of strength and power and are often seen as a guardian spirit.

In the middle of the night, a tiger creeps into a village wanting to steal a cow, and coincidentally, a burglar is also attempting to steal a cow. Throughout the night, a child is wailing and crying endlessly. Even when his mother threatens him that a big, scary tiger is coming to eat him, the child keeps crying.

Suddenly, the tiger hears the child's mother enticing the child with a persimmon. "Here's a dried persimmon," she says, and then the child stops crying. The tiger is shocked and amused, wondering how dried persimmon has stopped a child from crying.

The tiger wonders if the persimmon is more frightening than him, as the tiger couldn't scare the child. At the same time, the burglar, who mistakes the tiger for a cow, jumps on the tiger's back. Out of fear, the tiger bolts out of the village with the burglar on his back thinking it was the frightening dried persimmon.

The moral of the story is that mischief (the tiger) and corruption (the burglar) will not prevail if kindness, like the persimmon tree, is deeply planted in the hearts of people.

Picking the perfect persimmon takes some practice, starting with distinguishing between the three varieties of persimmons. All are nutrient dense, but each has a different texture, size, and taste.

Dan-gam (Fuyu) are yellow-orange in color and shaped like tomatoes. These are firm, nonastringent, and taste sweet. Dan-gam are great for adding to salads or dried into slices for a healthy snack.

Hongsi (soft persimmon) is sweet, soft, and squishy with paper-thin skin. It has a puréelike texture and is used as a sweetener for baking or cooking. When shopping for them, choose fruit that is plump but not too firm, with bright orange-colored skin that's free from blemishes.

Shaped like large orange-red acorns, Daebong-gam (Hachiya) are astringent and are often dried into gotgam, also known as hosigaki in Japan. Timing is important in making dried persimmons because the moment a Daebong-gam is at the perfect level of ripeness for drying can quickly pass, and then it may turn too ripe and mushy for drying. If you dry it too early, the unripe flesh will create a bitter, chalky taste in your mouth.

Author note: One of my favorite leaves to pick on my farm are persimmon leaves. Persimmon leaves contain proanthocyanidins, which are a type of polyphenols, tannins, flavonoids, terpenoids, nitric oxide, choline, astragalin, and amino acids. The leaves also have more vitamin C5 than the fruit and are a good source of carotenoids, magnesium, manganese, titanium, calcium, and phosphorus. Studies have shown that drinking persimmon leaf tea improves your metabolism6, and flavonoids help lower blood pressure.