Ugly Tomatoes

~ Clarissa

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Cashiers can never figure out my favorite winter fruit.
“Are these tomatillos or are they simply ugly tomatoes?” the cashier asked me today when she saw them.

“No, these are persimmons,” I explained, feeling wounded on account of the lovely fruit.

P.S. The persimmons are lying on a beautiful box a friend gave me for New Year’s.

Published by Clarissa

14 thoughts on “Ugly Tomatoes”

  4. These are persimmons, not tomatoes, as noted above. They are delicious if (and ONLY if) they are fully ripe. If they don,t taste good, put them outside in freezing weather for a few hours. When I was a child, lots of persimmon trees were on my friends’ property, though we never had one. Traditional wisdom was that they were no good until after the first frost.

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    2. ” If they don,t taste good, put them outside in freezing weather for a few hours.”

      – This is very good advice. I once ate a persimmon that was not fully ripe and I almost couldn’t breathe.

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  7. Persimmons
    BY LI-YOUNG LEE

    In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
    slapped the back of my head
    and made me stand in the corner
    for not knowing the difference
    between persimmon and precision.
    How to choose

    persimmons. This is precision.
    Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.
    Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one
    will be fragrant. How to eat:
    put the knife away, lay down newspaper.
    Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.
    Chew the skin, suck it,
    and swallow. Now, eat
    the meat of the fruit,
    so sweet,
    all of it, to the heart.

    The rest is here:
    http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171753

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  8. I had some at Christmas which was almost tasteless. They were grown in the garden of the people I was staying with and were great favourites with them.

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