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Persimmons: Food of the Gods
by Stacey Colino
Their botanical name, Diospyros, is Greek for “food of the gods,” but
their sweet taste isn’t the only thing that’s celestial about persimmons.
They’re power-packed, too: rich in vitamin A, potassium, fiber, and
disease-fighting phytochemicals lutein and lycopene, as well as other
antioxidants. They even outrank apples. A recent study pitted persimmons against
apples in a head-to-head comparison, and found that persimmons had twice as much
fiber, and significantly higher levels of potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron,
and manganese. Research at the Hebrew University–Hadassah Medical School in
Jerusalem also found that a persimmon a day could help fight heart disease
because their polyphenols (antioxidants) help prevent bad cholesterol from
accumulating in your arteries. “The more mature they are, the more flavonoids
they have. So you should eat them when they have their prettiest color and are
truly ripe,” says Barry Swanson, PhD, a professor of food science and nutrition
at Washington State University. Another new study from Korea has found that
eating plenty of persimmons, among other fruits, leads to a 57 percent lower
risk of precancerous colon polyps in women.
Persimmons are trendy, too. They’re popping up on menus across the country in
dishes like the spinach salad with persimmons and caramelized pecans at Campton
Place Restaurant in San Francisco. And Ariadne in Newtonville, Massachusetts,
now serves Arctic char served on a potato latke, with sautéed spinach, and
sweet-and-sour persimmons.
Fresh persimmons start arriving in grocery stores later this month, and peak
in November and December. But some specialty markets carry dried persimmons all
year long. With their glossy orange-red skin, they look like a cross between a
red apple and a yellow tomato.
Two types of the fruit were brought here from China and Japan in the mid to
late 19th century, and now grow primarily in California. The Hachiya persimmon
is acorn-shaped and soft, with a tangy-sweet flavor when it’s ripe. And the Fuyu
is smaller, rounder, and more tomato-shaped, with a firm texture and sweet
taste.
Choose Fuyus that are firm and crisp like an apple; you can eat them skin and
all. With Hachiyas, to get the best flavor, go for ones that are completely ripe
and soft. Either way, look for deeply colored fruits—without blemishes—displayed
in individual nests because they bruise easily. You can ripen a persimmon at
room temperature, then refrigerate it for up to 3 days.
So what do you do with a persimmon?
Enjoy them raw, on their own, or with cheese or ice cream.
Use mashed-up persimmons in spice cookies, breads, cakes, or muffins.
Toss a cut-up persimmon in a salad of bitter greens with toasted pecans or
walnuts and vinaigrette.
Scoop out the ripe flesh, heat it in a saucepan with a little olive oil, and
use it as a glaze over chicken, duck, fish, or pork.
Dried Persimmon Slices: $ 3.55 per pound
Health, January 2005
Dried Fruit: One Sweet Package
by Domenica Marchetti
As the weather gets colder, fewer options are available for getting your
daily fruit fix. (Apples are great, but we crave variety.) Enter dried fruit,
which is nature’s way of getting you through the winter. Gone are the days when
it was relegated to the yearly fruitcake or eaten purely for the fiber boost.
With choices like dried blueberries and cherries now on store shelves, you can
enjoy and cook with your summer favorites year-round.
Dried fruits have benefits that extend far beyond the kitchen. They’re tiny,
concentrated packages of nutrition, high in fiber, potassium, and other
nutrients. A quarter-cup of dried figs, for example, has about 60 milligrams of
calcium, nearly twice as much as the same amount of low-fat cottage cheese,
which has 35 milligrams. And about five dried apricots give you 36 percent of
the Daily Value for vitamin A.
Recent studies have shown that dried fruit is also high in antioxidants and
may offer many of the same health benefits as fresh. A study conducted by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that fresh blueberries had the
highest antioxidant levels of 41 fruits and vegetables the researchers tested.
Dried blueberries, however, pack an even bigger punch, with four times the
antioxidants of their fresh counterparts, according to Charles M. Mainland, PhD,
a blueberry researcher and professor of horticulture at North Carolina State
University.
Moreover, new research has found that dried plums (a.k.a. prunes) appear to
slow the progression of heart disease. “Compounds called chlorogenic and
neochlorogenic acids may be involved in this beneficial effect,” says Daniel
Gallaher, PhD, a professor of food science and nutrition at the University of
Minnesota. Plus, studies from the University of Scranton and Rutgers University
have found that figs contain numerous antioxidants and, surprisingly,
heart-protective omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
Despite all of these benefits, dietitians still recommend not going overboard
on the amount of dried fruit you eat. Because it has less water than fresh
fruit, it also has a higher proportion of sugar and calories. What’s more, sugar
is added to some dried fruits to balance their tartness, and the drying process
can deplete vitamin C content.
Another consideration: Fruits such as apples and apricots, which darken when
exposed to the air, are often treated with sulfites to keep them from
discoloring. Though these chemicals are harmless to most people, they can cause
allergic reactions in a few, and in rare cases, even death. Look for untreated
fruit at health-food stores and some supermarkets.
As a practical matter, dried fruit has a much longer shelf life than fresh.
It will keep for 6 months to a year in an airtight container.
And it isn’t merely a component of upscale trail mix. You can put it to
endless creative uses in the kitchen (try the ideas in our January 2005 issue).
A sprinkling of dried blueberries transforms plain old chicken salad into
luncheon fare suitable for company; and a handful of dried cherries delivers an
extra shot of flavor to your holiday stuffing. We swear that you’ll never look
at those shriveled skins the same way again.
— Domenica Marchetti is a frequent contributor to Health.
This article courtesy of
http://www.health.com
You may freely reprint this article on your website or
in
your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author
name and
URL remain intact.
Dried Grape Tomatoes: $ 5.25 per pound
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