The consensus among historians is that alcoholic beverages were not a part of Native American culture in the Southeast before the arrival of Old World settlers (tribes in the American Southwest, however, were known to make a fermented drink called tiswin from corn). What about the Powhatans, though? If persimmons were so important to their tribe and others-Rappahannock, Cherokee, Algonquin-wouldn’t they have been brewing persimmon beer? In any case, it’s clear two ancient strategies emerged.” “Given some of the connections between indigenous foods and those found across the Atlantic, it might be more in the lap of West Africans that we owe the existence of beers made from persimmons mixed with honey locust. “Europeans and Africans might ultimately have been the ones who brought the fermentation of Native American fruits into Southern culture,” Twitty writes. Its fruit, known as “alom” to the Wolof and “kuku” to the Fula peoples, was used for medicinal purposes, as a food source used in bread and-wait for it-to make beer. Diospyros virginiana would have reminded them of their own Diospyros mespiliformis, the African persimmon from what is commonly called the jackalberry tree. Twitty, author of “The Cooking Gene,” and others, we can envision a light bulb moment when these slaves encountered their first persimmons. The story takes a fascinating twist with the arrival of enslaved West Africans in Virginia in 1619. The West African Village at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Va. John Smith followed with this: “Putchamins grow as high as a Palmeta the fruit is like a Medler it is first greene, then yellow, and red when it is ripe if it be not ripe, it will draw a man’s mouth awry, with much torment, but when it is ripe, it is as delicious as an Apricot.” Englishman Thomas Hariot penned an account in 1587, and Capt. The first description is credited to an anonymous author writing in 1557 about Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto’s expedition in the North American Southeast. To those Old World newcomers, the persimmon was a novelty persimmons are not native to Europe. The fickle fruit was eaten raw or dried for use in a variety of foodstuffs, including bread that was shared with English settlers during Jamestown’s infancy. Persimmons were a staple among the Powhatan, Cherokee, Rappahannock and others, “so valued for their fruit that sometimes the Native people would build their homes near the trees,” says a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities publication. The fruit’s common name is derived from Native Americans Powhatans called it “putchamin ” others, “pessamin” or “pasiminian.” One scientist writing in 1896 said the Native American name translates to “choke fruit”-biting into a persimmon before it ripens in the fall will turn your mouth inside out. The scientific name, ascribed by Carolus Linnaeus in 1753, is Diospyros virginiana. Virginians can claim particular connection to the fruit and the beer. Lee Graves photoĭuring persimmon beer’s heyday, newspapers from New York to New Orleans carried recipes, including ones credited to Thomas Jefferson. Persimmons ripen in the fall an unripe persimmon will have potent pucker power. “ is to the connoisseur of temperate taste, not inferior to the fermented juice of the grape.” “This beer when properly made, in a warm room, is an exquisitely delightful beverage as the writer knows from personal trial and experience,” wrote a South Carolina journalist in the Anderson Intelligencer in 1876. That past has a richer context than many realized when they drank Ardent’s version of “Jane’s Percimon Beer.” The history of persimmons and persimmon beer in early America represents a unique intersection of three cultures-English settlers, Native Americans and enslaved West Africans-and a beverage that became iconic in the Old South. “It’s a fun way to bring the past into the present.” “You can feel a connection across time when you’re drinking something that maybe hasn’t been drunk for a couple hundred years,” said Paul Levengood, then president of what is now the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, sponsor of several “History on Tap” programs. The excitement was palpable when aficionados gathered at Ardent to toast the first public pouring of the light, effervescent brew. “A drink brought back from the grave!” trumpeted the Daily Mail in England. When Ardent Craft Ales in Richmond, Va., used a recipe from a 1700s cookbook to make a batch of persimmon beer in 2014, the effort made international headlines.
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