hoshigaki 0: persimmon time
One of the first things I’m going to do when I get home is to attempt making hoshigaki (干し柿).
We have a beautiful (and too tall) astringent-type persimmon tree at home — I assume it’s Hachiya. Steve and I never eat them because waiting until they’re edible means that they’re this weird mushy texture.
But, I heard about this Japanese method of preserving and drying persimmons about half a year ago. The special massaging-as-you-dry gets rid of the astringency, and you end up with a dried whole persimmon with a white bloom of sugar on the outside. It’s very time and labor intensive, and is one of the listed items on Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste. I’ve never eaten one, but I do like regular dried persimmons, and my coworkers all say it tastes good.
a persimmon from our tree in 2008
Research gathered so far:
- step by step photo instructions (English)
- step by step photo instructions (Japanese – translated)
- photos of all the stages (Japanese)
- more instructions (Japanese – translated)
- a very good set of instructional Youtube videos — this is the only place where I could tell what “massaging” actually meant.
- Otow Orchards has a photo slide show of their process (English)
The general steps seem to be: 1: peel and hang on strings 2: let the outside dry a week, 3: massage every three days until it’s dry, about 2 weeks. There’s an optional blanch-in-boiling-water step between 1 and 2.
Can’t wait, I hope it’s not too late to start!