Autumn Fruits in Yosano

We've been eating a lot of new things, here and there, in addition to the plethora of things we've eaten in past trips to Japan and foods available in the US. Today, I'm going to tell you about some of the fruits we have here.

To the right are two fruits we have in the house right now. The one on the left should be easy to recognize. It's an apple. For the most part, apples are the same in Japan as they are in much of the rest of the world. This particular type of apple is usually used by the Japanese around festival time to make candied apples. The fruit on the right is a persimmon. There are several different kinds of persimmon, some of which need to be overripe before they are edible. Luckily for us, the Japanese tend to put things in stores when they are exactly ripe (except for tomatoes, which are usually sold frustratingly under-ripe).

Oh! I should put something in there so you can tell the sizes of these fruits. How's that? I bought a persimmon a few weeks back, just as they were getting in season. I ended up mashing it to a pulp and throwing it into a beef roast. It was pretty good! We got two more persimmons from one of Nat's coworkers (and our neighbor), so we just ate those plain. Then she gave us three more, along with some mandarin oranges. We ate all of the mandarins and I have plans for our current persimmons. Secret plans! If they work, I shall reveal all at a later date.

For those curious about the flavor of a persimmon, it's very sweet. When properly over-ripe, it's almost too sweet and can be used as a substitute for sugar in many recipes. When not eating the raw fruit, the Japanese sometimes dry it and eat it as a candy or as a sugar substitute. When under-ripe, it can be rather sour, due to its high tannin content. While some foods are lauded for the health benefits of their tannin content, persimmons have a bit too much and are best avoided until they ripen up quite a bit. After all, tannic acid is named because it was used in leather tanning. I think you might imagine what an immoderate amount might do to your stomach. If you've ever considered eating acorns, be aware that these are also reported to have a high tannin content and must go through a process to leech the tannins before they are good to eat. One or two probably won't hurt you, though (I used to eat an occasional acorn on the school playground as a child).

Back to the subject of Nat's coworkers giving us fruit, another coworker gave us some Japanese pears around the beginning of the month. Apparently, he had a surplus of FREAKING HUGE and insanely delicious Japanese pears. If we get more, I will smear a slice all over my computer screen in hopes that you guys will get a chance to taste them. Just thinking of people half a world away licking their computer screens wants me to try it right now.

Yes, I know it doesn't work that way, but a wild imagination has to get some use every now and again.

I guess that last picture might not really help you understand the actual size of the persimmon. The spoons in our house don't really come in sizes most of us from the States are used to.

Perhaps, I meant that you might want a better understanding of the size of the apple. That's right. We have miniature apples. Japan has normal-sized apples, too. These were just in the store for the festival season. As I mentioned above, these apples are typically candied (like American candied apples, only smaller...and sometimes different colored candy, like blue). I originally thought they were plums when I saw them at the grocery store. The price looked good, so I picked them up and noticed that they were, in fact, not plums. The novelty was too exciting to pass up, so we've been eating miniature apples for the past week. After some research, I discovered that Japan was not the only country with miniature apples. France also has a cultivar or two. So do some other countries, but I never got around to finishing my research. They taste like your average apple (as in, not any of those specific apples, like Red Delicious, Granny Smith or Gala; they just taste like "apple"). They're not incredibly filling, but a good snack for tiding one over until mealtime. Likely, they're going to be out of stores soon, if they aren't already. The demand for them in Japan appears to be extremely seasonal.