Is anyone familiar with persimmons?

[I have a friend in Indiana and they go to persimmons festivals and stuff.]

The ones in the store are from California, and they’re big and round and perfect, but that’s not the way they are in Indiana. And you don’t eat a persimmon until it falls off the tree.  If you eat a green one, it’ll pucker your mouth like nothing you ever—anyway, when we were little, the woman that lived next door had three persimmon trees, and she would let us gather those up.  And we would sell them.  Everybody wanted to make persimmon pudding. It’s not a pudding, it’s a real moist bread, sort of like date nut bread.

[Sort of like a British-style pudding.]

Yeah, and then we would use the money—it was that time of year—for our Halloween party.  We’d bob for apples, you know.  But they’re very tasty.