American persimmon - Diospyros virginiana (along the verge of The Pumpkin Field)

 

Not too many people of the late 2oth and present 21st century North America have eaten the native persimmon that grows wild over the middle Atlantic range of temperate forest - even those of my age - but long ago, growing up very poor and rural this was one of the available sweet treats in late fall that my father showed me how to eat when they were fully ripened and hopefully kissed by frost to dissipate the harsh astringency due to tannins which can make the unripened fruit - which might look beautiful and ripened but full of mouth puckering tannin.  These fruits shown above are wizened and almost fully ripe (I ate one which was initially lovely and delicious but with some of those lingering tannins which ruined the after-taste.  I tried a few store asian persimmons but they just don't appeal to me.  Like all wild fruit some of the wild fruits are fantastic and others are just 'blah'.  But I have a few trees that I visit in late November and in a good early frost year enjoy a great wild repast.