Yesterday I was lucky enough to come across a small stand of wild persimmon trees in a forest in North Brunswick. These wonderful small fruits have a taste that is unlike any other fruit. The flavor defies comparison to any fruit I've tasted. Persimmons need to be overripe to be eaten or they possess an astringent quality that is literally like a mouthful of a dozen lemons. But frost and wind and sun combine to create one of the most perfect wild fruits. In 1607, while at the Jamestown Colony, Captain James Smith described it "if it is not ripe, it will drive a man's mouth awrie with much torment, but when it is ripe, it is as delicious as the apricot."

Persimmons can never be eaten right from the tree. When they ripen they drop off the branches and because they are soft, tend to squish when they hit the ground. This is when they can be eaten; a sticky, mushy, incredibly delicious orange mess. Since other animals find them delicious too, the ground beneath a tree is often a mix of half eaten and squashed fruits. Admittedly, it takes a bit of a leap of faith to scoop one up and plop it in your mouth, knowing that it might have been shared by some other forest dweller. But once a fresh overripe persimmon is tasted, it's well-worth the momentary trepidation.

For anyone that spends time out doors wandering fields and swamps and forests, stumbling on wild fruits is one of the truly great pleasures. These fruits and berries and nuts are the polar opposite of their store bought and farm cultivated cousins. A pocked wild apple on a gnarly long forgotten tree, blueberries in a swamp forest with muck around the ankles, puckery wild grapes with just a hint of sweetness, raspberries shared with the insects that also find them irresistible, smashed persimmons touched by frost and picked up from the forest floor; their appearance and taste is wild and unmanaged with an ethereal quality that can only come from nature. They are often best enjoyed right where they are found, with wind and sun and birds and sky enhancing the experience of their taste. Thoreau described this perfectly in his essay on Wild Apples (1862) and these quotes have come to be some of my favorites in nature writing. They are so descriptive of why wild fruits are such a unique experience that transcends taste. I'll let Thoreau take the lead on this one, he does it better that I could ever hope to. Enjoy....

"But it is remarkable that the wild apple, which I praise as so spirited and racy when eaten in the fields or woods, being brought into the house, has frequently a harsh and crabbed taste...I frequently pluck wild apples of so rich and spicy a flavor that I wonder all orchardists do not get a scion from that tree, and I fail not to bring home my pockets full. But perchance, when I take one out of my desk and taste it in my chamber I find it unexpectedly crude,--sour enough to set a squirrel's teeth on edge and make a jay scream.

These apples have hung in the wind and frost and rain till they have absorbed the qualities of the weather or season, and thus are highly seasoned, and they pierce and sting and permeate us with their spirit. They must be eaten in season, accordingly,--that is, out-of-doors.

To appreciate the wild and sharp flavors of these October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. The out-door air and exercise which the walker gets give a different tone to his palate, and he craves a fruit which the sedentary would call harsh and crabbed. They must be eaten in the fields, when your system is all aglow with exercise, when the frosty weather nips your fingers, the wind rattles the bare boughs or rustles the few remaining leaves, and the jay is heard screaming around. What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labelled, "To be eaten in the wind."

Happy wandering...

P.S. If you enjoyed the quotes by Thoreau and have an interest in searching out and trying wild fruits, you might also enjoy reading his "last book", Wild Fruits: Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript. The book is a compilation of his observations and thoughts about wild fruits and botany from an unfinished manuscript he was writing before he died in 1862. It was never published while he was alive. In 1999 it was finally published by W. Norton & Company. It is available from Amazon @ http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Fruits-Thoreaus-Rediscovered-Manuscript/dp/0393047512