Carolina Persimmon Puddin' -Anti Chef

Well, now that Thanksgiving is behind us, and all the food television is moving on to the next holiday season (can we still call it a season?) I figure it would be a good opportunity to post a recipe that has been a favorite of the good folks of the North Carolina Outer Banks for the last couple hundred years. I work as a tour guide most of the year now, in a little place called Carova Beach. It's tucked in between Corolla, NC and the Virginia border...where the Wild Spanish Mustangs still roam free and you can only access your home or vacation paradise by four wheel drive vehicle. Many different species of wild and edible plants and animals live there. Aside from the horses, we also have wild boar (tasty), raccoons,duck potatoes, opossum, white tailed deer, cat tails (yeah, they have an edible shoot like bamboo), and Bob White quail...to mention a few.

This time of the year is one of my favorite times. Not only have all the tourists gone home, leaving the beaches and dunes to us, but the last of the summer fruit hangs heavy on bare branches just waiting to be eaten. The leafless orchards remind me of jack-o-lantern trees once the oblong leaves turn red and finally fall off, leaving behind the ripening pumpkin colored fruit. Every creature in the north beach loves to grub on the persimmons, from the horses to the crabby folks at the Carova Beach Volunteer Fire Department. My Great Aunt lived up there for more than forty years, and among the dishes we looked forward to during the cold weather holidays was Persimmon Puddin(g). My Uncle was a crabber, so we always had crab dip, or crab cakes in early fall, and rockfish (striped bass) in the winter...but the persimmons were always the unlikely, but delicious star of this season's Holiday spread. They grow WILD all over the place, dispersed by all the industrious and hungry quadrupeds, and all you have to do is pick yourself a bunch and get to it. Just make sure that they are ripe, for if not, they will turn your face inside out. It's always fun to watch a young'un figure this fact out for the first time. Harmless and fun. They usually ripen after the first frost, which rarely comes early for us...just right for setting us up for Christmas desserts. I hope you enjoy this as much as we do, once left alone to our Autumnal wanderings, out here in the middle of nowhere. So without further, - yeah....yeah...yeah.... you will need enough ripe persimmons to yield around two cups of pulp once the skins and seeds are removed.

ingredients:

2c. persimmon pulp

3 c. milk

2 c. sugar

2 eggs

2 c. all purpose flour

1 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

1 t. vanilla

-dash of cinnamon

(some fools use nuts, chopped, one half cup)

whipped cream

method:

- preheat your oven to 350 degrees

- puree the skinned and seeded pulp in a food processor

- in one large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients

- in another large bowl combine the pulp, milk, sugar, eggs and vanilla and beat well

- add the dry ingredients to the wet, combining thoroughly ( this is where some jack asses might add nuts)

- pour mixture into an 9" x 13" baking dish (you don't need to grease it)

- bake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until the blade of a thin knife comes out clean

- serve it warm, with the whipped cream.

- tell somebody you made it, they might be impressed.