100 Things I Love About Korea # 43: Great Seasonal Fruit

Out of season, produce is crazy expensive here.  But in season, you get a little pay back.
As a fruit (say pears or strawberries) approaches its regular season, the first fruits appear on the shelves for outrageous prices.  But then the prices and quality make their slow march downward to rock bottom prices.
We just hit the peak of mandarine orange season.  One bag of 30 or so costs less than $5.  I can put down 4-5 of those little gems in one sitting.
But my favorite is strawberry season.  At its peak, there are so many strawberries that the stores are practically giving them away just to keep them from rotting on their shelves.  Our family can go through a few pounds a day - easily!  Strawberries are just starting to get reasonable now, so my mouth is already watering.
Oh, and by the way, avoid the big grocery stores for fresh fruit.  Their supply chains are too long, and their fruit isn't fresh (especially Lotte Mart).  Instead, hit up your neighborhood fruit stand.  The prices are better, and the fruit is fresher.

100 Things I Love About Korea # 34: Food - Persimmon

I remember a neighborhood in Kansas called “Persimmon Hill.”  I had to ask what a persimmon is.  An answer of “Some kind of fruit, I think,” proves the persimmon’s fall from grace in America.  It is something akin to a living antique, a relic of settlers long past.  As far as I know, most persimmon “back home” rot on the trees due to a general lack of knowledge of what they are or how to eat them.  

Korea has cured me of my ignorance of this tasty fall fruit.  Persimmon look kind of like an orange colored tomato, but they taste like a spiced apple.  They even look as if they are sprinkled with natural cinnamon inside.  

In Korea, persimmon are eaten in four basic ways:

• Fresh and slightly unripe - my favorite.  The texture is a bit harder and less grainy than an apple, but the cinnamon flavor is most pronounced.
• Fresh and very ripe.  These are so soft and sugary that they are almost like eating straight jelly, and in fact, you basically have to use a spoon or fork for these.
• Ripe and frozen - Put those same super-rich fruit in the freezer, and you’ve got a natural popsicle.  
• Dried - I guess it’s the very ripe fruit that are dried, but honestly I don’t like these very much.  

Fall in Korea is marked by ancient persimmon trees barren of leaves dotting the sky with small orange globes.  They look somewhat forlorn, dangling precariously on black wiry branches against the gray wintering skies.  But harvest those same lonely fruit into bushels, and those fiery little orbs add joy to the season and to the table.