Gimme some Gotgam

Pat here. What is a gotgam? It's a Korean dried persimmon, and while I wish someone would actually give me some, I've had to resort to making my own as I've never seen them for sale.

Where I live there are two kinds of persimmons, fuyu and hachiya. These are Japanese names. The fuyu are a hard, crunchy fruit that can be eaten like an apple as soon as they are picked. The hachiya are a bit more complicated. Although they are harvested while hard, they really can't be eaten until they are a soft, pulpy mass. They are too astringent to eat while hard. It is the hachiya that is dried and made into hoshigaki, another Japanese name that translates into Korean as gotgam.

I've been trying to make hoshigaki for two years now. Last year they were a major fail. This year I've done some more reading and hope to have more success. To make hoshigaki, each persimmon has to be peeled, dunked in boiling water, and then hung by a string to dry until they become dried fruit, or in Korean, gotgam. You can see in the pics that is exactly what I've done.

I really thought that hoshigaki was a unique Japanese endeavor and that they were only to be found in Japanese foods UNTIL I noticed an actor sampling one in my current Kdrama, Castaway Diva. It was an "AHA" moment for sure! That was my initiation into the world of gotgam, and I'm hoping that in a few weeks I'll have a follow up picture to include in a later post. Once again the world of Kdramas has opened my eyes and my palate to another world of adventurous eating.

Shout out to Castaway Diva featuring the fabulous Park Eun-bin of Extraordinary Attorney Woo. In this series she does the singing; I can't believe how multi-talented these Korean actors are.

I suppose it's also time for me to come clean with Pat. I have never eaten either type of persimmon in my life. Perhaps next visit to her place I can sample some? ~ Judy

Hop on a plane, Judy. They're only available in the wintertime!