On Food and Cooking

may be the first example of controlled-
atmosphere storage! They simply buried the
fruit in mud for several days. It turns out that
when the fruits are deprived of oxygen, they
shift their metabolism in a way that results in
the accumulation of an alcohol derivative
called acetaldehyde, and this substance binds
with tannins in the cells, thus preempting
them from binding to our tongues. Modern
cooks can accomplish the same thing by
wrapping persimmons snugly in a truly
airtight plastic film, polyvinylidene chloride
(saran).
Persimmons are commonly eaten raw,
frozen whole into a natural sorbet, and made
into pudding. Traditional American
persimmon pudding owes its distinctive
black-brown color to the combination of the
fruit’s glucose and fructose, flour and egg
proteins, alkaline baking soda, and hours of
cooking, which encourage extensive browning
reactions (p. 778; replace the baking soda with