The Vegetarian Bible: Getting the most out of persimmons.Thinkstock
The persimmons always get me. Each fall I'll be cruising past a produce store, perfectly minding my own business, and then I'll catch the deep-orange glow radiating up soft and insistent from between the pomegranates and the Novamac apples, taunting me like the remembrance of a best friend whose birthday – make that two birthdays, actually – I suddenly realize I forgot.
I love persimmons. And every fall when they come into season I forget which ones I should buy and whether to get them hard or soft or a little bit oozy, and what I'm supposed to do with them when I get them home.
Enter page 411 of The Vegetarian Flavor Bible, a new and exhaustive encyclopedia of sorts with everything you ever need to know about cooking through the produce aisles.
The Vegetarian Flavor Bible's "persimmons" entry doesn't merely say how and when to buy the fruits (you should get the Hachiyas when they're soft, and the Fuyus when they're firm; both varieties are available in autumn) and what they taste like; it lists a page-and-a-half of foods that persimmons go well with, from brandy and barley, to ginger, leeks, parsnips, yuzu and yams. Another part of the entry outlines a dozen persimmon "flavour affinities:" ingredient combinations that persimmons love. (One I plan to try this weekend: "persimmons + greens + olive oil + orange juice + pears + pecans + sherry vinegar.")
Maybe my persimmon is your hiziki (that's an Asian sea vegetable that looks like black angel-hair pasta and goes great with lotus roots), or cascabel chilis (try them with almonds and peaches), or green tomatoes or tarragon or umeboshi plum vinegar.
By forgoing recipes in favour of flavour matches, the book frees up confident cooks to play around and invent and make meatless meals incredible – and just maybe to live with less fear and guilt around the produce store.
It's the most useful food book I've encountered in years.