Persimmons

No one has to tell a child not to eat unripe persimmons twice. Once a child takes a bite of a green one, the memory stays with him forever. It's that bad. I speak from experience.


We hunted them, however, because we wanted to see what was inside the seed. The seed, when opened, could reveal a knife, fork, or spoon. We spent hours opening persimmon seed. My sister's husband was from Maine, and when he first came to the South, he thought this search for persimmon cutlery was the weirdest thing we did.


Some say that persimmons can predict the coming winter.

Some use them to make a tasty pudding.

Some say they are the favorite food of opossums, and if you wanted to hunt a 'possum, you would look for them in a persimmon tree.

Personally, the best thing about them is how beautiful the orange globes look against the late fall sky.