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Welcome to Brain Stuff, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hey, Brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here.

We've all been handed our fair share of lemons lately, so enough already with the lemonade.

As time sprawls on with ongoing challenges and untold potential, why not grab it by its stem, tie a string around it, and give

another of life's astringent fruits a shot at proverb status. When life hands you persimmons,

make hoshagaki. A hoshagaki is a type of dried persimmon.

Originally a method of preserving the fall harvest for winter, hoshagaki are a centuries-old

Japanese delicacy that's easy to make, but is remarkably time and effort-intensive.

The week's long process happens slowly,

requiring patience, mindfulness, and almost microscopic attention to detail, and a near-daily practice of gently and slowly massaging each persimmon by hand. There are many species and varieties of persimmons, though they tend to be

about the size and shape of a tomato, either squatly round or more oval and sort of pointed, and are

golden to red to brown in color when they're mature. The fruits are sweet and taste sort of rich,

like squash, with a little bit of fruity spice to them.

You can categorize persimmons into two main categories, astringent and non-estringent.

Estringency is the quality of things that make you pucker, they taste drying and sort of bitter.

Non-estringent persimmon varieties like Fuyu and Jido can be eaten fresh, out of hand like an apple, or peeled and sliced into any

dish that you'd like peeled, sliced fruit in, either while they're still crisp or when they're a little

riper, and thus softer and sweeter.

They're also dried in slices like apples or mangoes.

The stringent varieties, like one called Hachia, have to be uber ripe to be eaten fresh.

They're essentially so puckery that they're inedible until they're jelly on the inside,

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