I tried a persimmon today. It is quite extraordinary after 24 full and hearty years of food consumption to discover not just a new fruit, but one that actually has an appeasing taste and texture (i.e. one that is not on the fringe simply because its taste is not compelling or because its texture is mealy, etc). The particular kind of persimmon that someone brought in looked much like a small orange tomato, but was hard and firm. Apparently most persimmons need to ripen and become soft, but these could be eaten hard.

It's really hard to describe the taste. There's an element of a kind of squash to it -- pumpkin or butternut, if one were to eat them uncooked -- and that's definitely apparent in the texture as well, though not explicitly -- but sometimes there was a slight essence of plum, a hint of tomato (I emphasize, a hint -- I can't stand raw tomato usually, so more than a hint would have lessened my experience), a sense of cinnamon or nutmeg -- all of it smoothly melded together enough to defy direct comparison.

If you haven't tried one, do. It's kind of like eating an October night -- before it gets truly cold, when you could still sit out on a screened-in porch so long as you wore a relatively warm jacket, and you could smell the last tiny hint of the summer's flora on the air, and the first hint of fallen leaves.