North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Melissa Kacalanos <mijwiz@yahoo.com>]

Donna,

I've never counted a superior sense of taste among my
superpowers. I notice but enjoy the bitterness of
turnip greens etc., and my husband claims I must have
no taste buds left from all the hot chilies I eat. I
guess I'm just extra-sensitive to astringency.

Just to confirm this, other people here have eaten
astringent variety produce store persimmons, right?
When they're on the discount rack because they're as
soft and gooey as an overripe tomato, I still can't
stand them, but I guess you people would tell me that
that's when they're good.

I like the plan of planting a hardy American tree,
grafting tender non-astringent kaki onto it, and
wishing it luck. Or maybe I should wait until someone
breeds a non-astringent hardy tree, since I see that
there are some Asian/American crosses available
already. I wonder how many genes control this
astringency trait, as it seems like a simple on/off
thing, so maybe non-astringency could be backcrossed
into a hardy American genetic background. Then again,
I don't imagine there are teams of plant breeders
working on this problem.

Melissa

--- Donna &/or Kieran <holycow@cookeville.com> wrote:

> Melissa,  Go ahead and plant your selected Z5
> American persimmon, and then 
> once it's grown pretty well, put on a few scions of
> some non-astringent 
> kakis and see what happens.  They'll probably die,
> but it won't cost you 
> much to find out.
>     What about other foods?  Do you find grocery
> carrots or turnip greens 
> terribly bitter?  You may be one of the small
> percentage of the population 
> who are "supertasters", with twice the normal number
> of taste buds.  Such 
> people find mildly bitter foods unbearably bitter. 
> There are ways around 
> the problem, like making sure there is enough fat in
> such foods to coat the 
> tongue a bit and thus reduce the contact.  Someone
> else said their 
> persimmons weren't as good as they'd hoped.  For
> both of you, when you have 
> enough persimmons coming in, sieve the RIPE fruit
> and use it in an 
> applesauce cake recipe.  The little bit of
> astringency will be diluted by 
> other ingredients and butter, and the result is
> superb.     Donna 


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com