Week One – Persimmon Fruit

Admittedly, persimmon fruit is probably not the most exciting start to the weekly new food challenge and an undoubted disappointment to those of you expecting me to be shoving a camel gonad or kangaroo eyeball into my mouth – You’ve obviously been watching too much “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”

Anyway, have you any idea how difficult it is to source either of those particular foodstuffs?

It seems that fruit in British supermarkets doesn’t come with instructions.  As a result, I was unsure as to how to operate my newly purchased persimmon fruit…  It looked a bit like an orange tomato.  I formulated no other opinion.

As any sensible person would do, I consulted the internet (I’m not sure where sensible people went for enlightenment before the internet).  This is what I found: –

(1) An unripe persimmon tastes furry

(2) A common misconception is that persimmons should be ripened till rotten

I hoped that the fruit I was just about to eat fell between the two on the furry/rotten continuum…

(3) In 1994 A hospitalized 51-year old man was found to have eaten one-kilo of persimmons every day for forty years.  No mention was given to whether this hospitalization was as a result of persimmon consumption.

A quick check on the NHS Direct website didn’t flag up any dangers, so I pressed on…

I cut the top off  and spooned out the orange flesh…

It tasted sweet and not furry or rotten in the slightest.

I had survived Week One.

Tune in next week for the consumption of something far more exotic (perhaps)…