Go big on your last chance at Hachiyas

It often makes me anxious to see someone’s front lawn covered with fallen Hachiya persimmons. How, I wonder, can I hop that fence and salvage the waste? It takes a degree of will to turn, walk on and forget it. But it also reminds me that local markets may be inundated by a similar surplus. Indeed, as December draws to a close, grocery stores everywhere are selling off the last of the Hachiya crop, often at reduced prices, before they quite literally melt under their own weight—which is what Hachiyas do when they ripen. And isn’t it happily convenient that these bargain-bin fruits are the best, too?

Getting them home from the store is the challenge, as the ripest of these glossy, orange fruits—so often overlooked as mere tomatoes by people who don’t know better—will literally slip out of their own skins if roughly handled. So the trick, then, is to go big and buy the whole box. You might strike a deal as good as four persimmons for a dollar, and the specially designed packing containers will keep the delicate fruits in one piece until you get home.

Now, get creative. Make smoothies with your persimmons, blend them into ice cream, bake them into cookies, or simply freeze them in an airtight bag and enjoy this sweetest decadent fruit of the autumn all through winter, spring and summer.