Perfectly Persimmon

I had so much fun writing about kiwano yesterday, I decided to blog about another exotic beauty today. Its botanical name means “food from the Gods.” It looks like a tomato but is pleasantly sweet with a unique flavor I just love. It’s a Fuyu persimmon, and my local market was flooded with them (it’s the end of their season). It’s native to China, but is now grown in the United States. One medium fruit provides about 120 calories and is a great source of fiber. It has 6 g per fruit – that’s over 20% of all the fiber we need daily! It’s also rich in vitamin A, with 50% of our daily need, and vitamin C with 20%. They’re not as beautiful as other exotic fruits, but I really enjoy their taste, texture, and versatility.

Follow this link to some tasty persimmon recipes, including poached persimmons and persimmon sorbet (yum!), complete with each recipe’s nutrition facts. I love them sliced in garden salads with pecans, or as you can see from my photo, sliced and served on toothpicks.

Here’s another recipe for persimmon cookies!

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how to expand your own or a loved one’s food horizons, check out my article in the February issue of Eating Well magazine. It’s called Re-Train Your Taste Buds and it’s all about how my formerly chubby hubby trained his deep fried taco loving taste buds to actually enjoy tofu stir fry (along with lots of interesting research about how our taste preferences develop from pre-birth to adulthood).

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