Bill who putters wrote:
In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Oren wrote:

Our neighbor just returned from California and gifted some
Persimmons.

What shall we do with them? A little reading in Wiki helped. When
ripe would they be okay for a jam or jelly or just eat them like
other fruit?

Before persimmons are ripe they taste like nuclear powered lemon acid
chalk. After they are ripe they are more like pears. The change is
amazing. Out of hand, reduced to jam - Good either way.

I'd just point out that there are 2 types of persimmons perhaps more.
The wild or common are large trees with lots of small fruit around
here. I don't know who uses these but would guess a possible wine or
jelly candidate.
The other is the orange baseball size fruit grown somewhere that are
expensive. But left on a kitchen window and becoming very soft they
become a sweet tart astringent counter point to ice cream. Many
stars.

This describes the two sorts with pics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon

David