1425 Marmalade

Persimmon Marmalade. ;)

1 quart of Peeled Persimmons
1 cup of water
Juice of 1 lemon
Cup of sugar

Combine Persimmons and water. Boil to a thick pulp, add juice of lemon and cup of sugar. Boil for 10 minutes longer. Pour into sterilised jars and seal.

Now how easy does that sound !!!!!

Here’s the ‘reality’ version :

To pick Persimmons, don as much waterproof attire as is available.
Proceed to tree with large wok ( couldn’t find anything else at time ! )
Pick fruit by holding gently ( I mean GENTLY ) and twisting off branch…
..this will normally result in a large jelly-like mass in the your hand and the core of the fruit will still be firmly attached to the tree. Practise, practise and practise again !

Remember –this is free fruit and belongs to you and you are going to astound your visitors with your elegant pots of wonderful homemade marmalade ! Keep that thought throughout this exercise.

As and when you have filled your wok with as many ‘whole’ fruit as is achievable proceed to kitchen.

Remove your waterproofs and scrub hands, face, arms and any other part of your anatomy which is affected ( it may be quicker to shower at this stage !)

Now peel the Persimmons .

There are various methods but after several attempts and a couple of trees later, I found this method worked very well : You may find it helps to actually stand in sink to begin with but this is optional .
1) Hold whole fruit GENTLY ( there’s that word again !) in palm of hand and gently ( sorry –can’t think of another one ) pull skin off with knife, leaving as much pulp as possible .
2) This will have the consistency of a jelly –fish.
3) Try not to let pulp slither from hand into sink or onto floor or up the wall.
4) If you have any pulp left in your hand cut into 4 ( the pulp-not your hand )
5) You will now see a huge pip firmly embedded in the pulp in each quarter which has no intention of being removed. You now need to remove this pip , saving as much pulp as possible. Good Luck !
6) Check measuring jug and realise you only have enough pulp for 1 pint ( half a quart )-Halve all measures to above recipe.
7) Follow instructions in recipe above .
8) When bottled in 3 x 3 inch jars, ignore husbands remark when looking at your creation that he didn’t know you knew how to make French Mustard.
9) Scrape pulp off walls , floors, ceiling and attempt to wash everything you used at least 3 times . Have another shower and wash hair , removing pips and pulp as you go.
Happy marmalading !!!!!!!

Category
Food & Drink

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 09/25/2005 - 16:49

[img]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif[/img] [img]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Sorry, haven't been able to stop laughing for about the last 10 mins! I think you have missed your vocation Lyn, you just crack me up!

Thanks I needed that, don't think we will complete next week [img]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/images/smilies/mad.gif[/img] but hey we're coming to the PUGLIA PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!

Di

Did you know they put a limit on how many smileys you can post, I did put a whole row and it wouldn't post!!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 09/26/2005 - 03:21

Your account of the cacchi encounter certainly made me chuckle! Will you be giving a demonstration at the 'Puglia Party'? If so, you must definitely set up a web cam, well protected of course, so we can all see. Perhaps this is why you see so many cacchi left to rot on the trees - the locals know better?
Anne2

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 09/26/2005 - 05:08

Sorry ...not having my house on a web-cam.....
........just come and enjoy yourselves !!!!! You can make marmalade if you like !!!! :D

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 09/26/2005 - 11:10

I left it on kitchen worktop to fully cool overnight ....and when i went in this morning...i noticed Alex had left the 'real' marmalade jar by the bread board.....obviously not brave enough to try it on his own !!!!! :rolleyes:

Haven't had the guts to try it myself yet...still looks like French Mustard !!!! :eek:

Thought I'd wait till my sister and her husband come on Friday and leave it nonchalantly on the breakfast table ....problem is their first morning here is my brother-in-laws birthday...don't really want to spend the day in casualty!!!!!! :D

Think I'll just serve it at the party !!!! :cool:

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/08/2005 - 11:54

[QUOTE=alex and lyn]

To pick Persimmons, don as much waterproof attire as is available.
Proceed to tree with large wok ( couldn’t find anything else at time ! )
Pick fruit by holding gently ( I mean GENTLY ) and twisting off branch…
..this will normally result in a large jelly-like mass in the your hand and the core of the fruit will still be firmly attached to the tree. Practise, practise and practise again !

[/QUOTE]

Too late for this year, but may be worth remembering for next years crop.
A hot tip I was given today by an Italian friend is that the way to 'deal' with persimmon is to pick them when they are still orange, ie not yet ripe and to place them on a tray interspersed with ripe apples. This way they ripen and you do not get into such a mess!!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/10/2005 - 03:50

Reading this was priceless! Thanks for sharing.

Now to find persimmons....

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/10/2005 - 08:33

I got hundreds of the things !!! :D Not sure how to ship them to Ireland tho' ;)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/10/2005 - 08:40

[QUOTE=alex and lyn]I got hundreds of the things !!! :D Not sure how to ship them to Ireland tho' ;)[/QUOTE]

Going on your description of them - very very carefully...

We have heaps of soft berries about at the moment - and for once they are reasonably cheap. The downside is that some restaurants are feeling the need to be creative and are stuffing them in everywhere. Had a banoffee yesterday that had blueberries in it - would not normally mind but they were not sweet!