Kaki (also Cachi) are very healthy and very esteemed fruits. Before I came in Liguria I’ve never tasted and never heard about them. Now I know that the local people become crazy when starts their season! … Let’s check why they love them so much 😉
- Kaki start ripening at the end of October and finish in December. They come from southern Asia. They seem to be the orange tomatoes but their flavour is completely different. Very sweet and tasty.
- It is a slightly tangy fruit with a soft fibrous texture. The skin can be eaten (especially when the fruit is ripe and the tannins are almost completely decomposed), but many persons remove the skin before eating. Kaki can be eaten also dried or prepared as a jam.
- They are really very healthy. They are full of vitamin C, potassium, sodium and magnesium. They have the laxative and diuretic property. They also purify a liver! However, they are very caloric (70 kcal/100g) so they are not very dietary.
- They are also the oldest plants in cultivation. They were known for its use in China for more than 2000 years!!! In some rural Chinese communities, it was said that the kaki fruits had a mystical power. It could be harnessed to solve headaches, back pains and foot ache.
- Kaki tree is called tree of peace because some of them survived the atomic bomb of Nagasaki in 1945.
- They should be picked unripe. The way to make them ripe is to left them close to the apples. They become mature very fast!
- Kaki fruits are ripe when leaves have mostly fallen off the tree (October–November). It is quite a strange view 😉
- Some species of kaki have seeds that are very special … The seeds have a kind of picture that represents a fork or a spoon or a knife (!!!). And every year the picture changes (!!!). It is said that if a seed has the fork picture, the winter will be mild. The picture of the spoon means that the winter will be very snowy/rainy. The picture of the knife means that the winter will be very hard! The local people claim that it really works! And I must admit that last year it last year it worked! 🙂
… So now you would probably like to know what weather will be like this winter … 😉 ??? Below the answer! We will check if it works also this year!
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