In Greensboro, the temperature dropped significantly yesterday, from what felt like 80 degrees on Saturday to in the 50's on Sunday. Above, you see the produce that we harvested from our back yard yesterday. Chez Mr. and Mrs. GDP, we've opted to nurse along our summer garden a little more, as opposed to being good southerners and planting cold crops (turnips, collards, radishes, mixed greens, broccoli, etc.). We still have okra (purple & green), a few cherry tomatoes, and eggplant.
Additionally, the fruit on our saijo persimmon tree is now ripe. It was so abundant this year that the top snapped off under the weight of the fruit. Saijo means "the very best one" in Japanese and rightfully so. The saijo persimmon doesn't need a pollinator tree, is disease resistent and is hardy in our planting zone. Wish us luck that the remaining half of the two-year-old tree will continue to grow. The photo shows about 1/4 of the fruit from the little tree so you can see what we mean by abundant. We have already turned the pulp from these persimmons into persimmon cake. Although we've enjoyed the fruit, we regret not pruning the tree back and learned our lesson the hard way.
One of Mr. GDP's favorite childhood foods was persimmon pudding, made with wild, native persimmons. The wild variety is labor intensive to prepare for use in the kitchen. The seeds are large and the amount of pulp significantly less than the Asian varieties. It is getting harder to find native persimmons. If you see some for sale, or better yet, free for the picking, please let us know. With each generation, there are fewer and fewer memories of seasonal foods. Just about any food one wants can be imported from somewhere these days. However, nothing beats the spicy tastes of fall... consumed in October and November! Making native persimmon pudding is a North Carolina tradition and is still on our to-do list.
Those eggplant look very good! I really like them and good fresh ones are hard to find even at the farmer's markets here. Because they are a fragile crop and we have a short season because of the very hot Summers they are just now coming into their own here.
I like to saute slices,very lightly breaded,in olive oil and serve with crusty bread,sliced tomato,fresh mozzarella a dollop of plain yoghurt and a good Balsamic drizzle ...lunch may happen early now!LOL!
Seasonal foods are about tradition in California since we are blessed with a year-round bounty from up and down the coast as well as the bread basket of the central valley. I hang around a lot of "foodies" and there is a definite change in menu when the weather changes,for example we just entered Chili season even though many hot dogs were slathered with it over the Summer.
Here Cornbread begins in the Autumn and ends in late Spring(it all has to do with turning the oven on or not).
Watermelon although available all year is only sweet,tasty and crisp from June through September.
As we all know Starbucks declares when Pumpkin Season begins.
I wonder how Linus Van Pelt would feel about that?
Posted by: Janis of So Cal | Monday, October 08, 2012 at 03:24 PM
Eggplant looks good.
I've never had Okra that size that was edible. It's like chewing wood.
Posted by: Hugh | Monday, October 08, 2012 at 06:06 PM
Hugh: You caught us. Many of the larger pods of okra weren't edible. However, that was our fault, not natures. We just didn't harvest them soon enough. I can tell by the first knife slice if they will be edible or not. If we can't eat them, we toss them in the compost pile.
Thanks for commenting!
NC Janis..... as you notice above, we have a CA Janis friend!
Posted by: Janis & David | Monday, October 08, 2012 at 07:45 PM
I learned that lesson the hard way from a garden that was over-fertilized with chicken manure.
Posted by: Hugh | Tuesday, October 09, 2012 at 01:12 PM