Lotus Persimmon - Is this the fruit from Homer's The Odyssey? (Date Plum)
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- Episode: 769 Lotus Persimmon
Species: Diospyros lotus
Location: NYC, USA
0:00-2:07 What is date plum?
2:07-4:22 What does date plum taste like?
4:22-6:45 Dried Date plum review
6:45-8:04 Conclusion
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Развлечения
Looking for more fruit from classic literature? Check out these two, which were mentioned in Romeo and Juliet:
Medlar: ruclips.net/video/IKZsMNfRiRE/видео.html
Poperin Pear (or something like it): ruclips.net/video/0YpZxImYi_g/видео.html
When you have scurvy it would be very addictive.
Could be a reference to the lotus pods psychedelic effect. I think it’s in the dmt family. The Egyptians smoked the seeds for “enlightenment” as far as we know.
"If I can't stop eating this thing... send me more". Not how I expected that to go lol
Ngl, I always took the tale of the Lotus eaters to be an euphemism for drug addiction. Like, maybe a natural opioid.
I thought the same thing! Lotus = poppy, maybe.
In ancient times, a blue lotus grew in Egypt. The scent was so intoxicating that they used every part of the plant until it became extinct.
@@CricketsBay we humans do tend to be rather proficient at that
@@CricketsBay Looks like its still around based on a simple google search. You must be thinking of silphium
Blue lotus contains Apomorphine, so yes.
Its an atypical opiate.
Love the dry humor. "Send me more, OK?". One of the best channels on youtube.
ABSOLUTELY IS.
Make the forbidden ketchup ❤
I've planted a persmimon tree in my garden ten years ago thinking it was the same fruit as the kaki fruits you can buy in the supermarket. I was so happy to finally taste the fruits but the first bite turned my mouth into cotton. I wasn't a fan of the gooey ripe fruits either and ignored them for some years before learning that they could be dried. Since then I peel and dry them every year and they are so good. Similar to dates but more firm.
Yep it's important to process your persimmons correctly!
A real life fairy fruit, the wrong persimmon will turn to ashes in your mouth
I love the gooey kind of persimmon it is super sweet and even has little pieces of jello like pulp. What's not to like?
Fun persimmons story, when my husband and I were dating, I invited him to my home to meet my family. At the end of the meal, we were all served persimmons, the gooey variety kind. His eyes literally popped out when he saw me and my family eating them with gusto. He wouldn't touch the persimmons on his plate. After the meal, he asked me why we had eaten rotten tomatoes. Even after I showed him that the orange "things" were not rotten tomatoes, he still refused to try them, and he hasn't to this day.
@@esmeraldagreen1992 I feel for him, totally normal reflex 😜
Makes you wonder how awful the the food on the ship was if they would stay on land for these😂
There's only so many months you can eat hard tack for every meal and every day before you start to see any other existence as preferable. Also keeping in mind how extremely small and cramped ships were at this time. They were just glad to be free on dry land and were making the most of it.
Every single crew member of Odysseus died shortly after that. They should have stayed on land.
What this doesn't take into account, was the fact that they must of landed at the right time that this fruit was ripe for harvest. Maybe they were like normal people most of thw time, they just stumbled upon the harvest festival!
probably fermented fruit that got them drunk.
@@AwesomeFish12 “clack, clack” if you know, you know
The most likely plant "lotus" is referred to is good old opium poppy.
Still love hearing the Earthbound travel music ❤
If you had been at sea for years, living on hardtack with weevils, you'd be glad to eat these fruit and forget about going back aboard, too.
Lotus Flowers (Blue at least) Contain Apomorphine which is an atypical opiate, with effects that are sometimes compared to cannabis, and i would have to agree with that comparison, but it is quite a bit different.
I've had lotus extract in my tea before and its quite a noticeable effect.
I've eaten lotus(nymphaea caerulea) and made tea from it and noticed literally zero effect. It is supposed to be mildly calming, however I did not experience this. Some people say that it was traditionally steeped in wine and this sort of tincture is more effective. In my experience, it does nothing, fresh, dried, tea, tincture or steeped in wine it doesn't matter.
I have seen a show about testing the effects of the lotus flowers as to the effects written about in history. They found a extremely low amount of the compound you mentioned and had no effect upon consumption.
In a world not used to stimulants like caffeine, that "slight" effect may have considerably more punch.
@@wisecoconut5 That is very true, they were using scientific methods and not actually taking anything. I believe they were alkali compounds they were looking at.
I make a tea of blue lotus flowers for myself and my spirituality students. I never recommend that anyone use it consistently when they need to work. But when they have a few days off it's a great way to relax and work through past trauma. It's a great tool. And thankfully unlike cannabis it is not regulated in my country.
I really loved the “let’s go to Pakistan” bit. That transition was fun and nostalgic, felt like some of the educational shows I watched during my childhood. Awesome video 👏🏽
Love fruit lore/ mythology/ literature. I didn’t remember the lotus eaters until you said it. Thanks for the fruit story book club!
I wonder if the lotus eaters were actually eating poppie instead. It sounds like these people were getting fried by these things.
there's a blue lotus in Egypt that has psychoactive effects. It was probably that
Supposedly there was a type of lotus in egypt that they used to get high. Could be something similar.
@@jeremyvolland8508 blue Lilly even though it's a lotus they put in wine I've tried it mild euphoric colors brighter music sounds better
Sounds similar to TX persimmons, I always describe them as tasting like dates crossed with plums to people.
Same genus, and both are also native to relatively arid lands.
From Oklahoma and will fight coons and possums for persimmons when they are ready.
Respect for the Les Halles shirt, rip Tony. I follow in his footsteps whenever I can
"The Lost Island" is a fun book with that same passage at its root.
Why were ancient people always talking about forbidden fruit?
That's Classified
It's always possible that whoever their ruler was decided they liked a fruit so much that they thought it was too good for a certain class of people. There are lots of examples of that sort of silliness.
It’s most likely always a metaphor. Often times it refers to either knowledge, or a way of life, that once the person experiences, going back to the way things were leaves them dissatisfied and melancholic. The ancient people LOVED their metaphors, and so many have been lost to translation or became obsolete, while others we still use today.
Bc they can make you hallucinate. If never have, it's the the most amazing experience ever
They didn’t have McDonald’s
Holy smokes, Earthbound music at 4:47
Not the first time I'm hearing Earthbound music on this channel, but whenever I do, I'm delighted
As a subscriber i waited a few years for this review but it worth it. Thank you!
I wish you had gone into why some people think this was the "lotus" described by Homer...
I always assumed the lotos was opium poppy latex, and that a dried form of this is also what was offered to Helen of Troy. It's Herodotus who describes lotos as a berry from a tree.
A king of Aegyptus and the Libyan people in Greek myth was Epaphus, whose name sounds like poppy and pap, and the lotos eaters were said to live in Libya. The poppy latex may have been baked into bread, much as poppy seeds are used on top of bread today. Whatever was offered to Helen, it was used for the pains of soldiers and for treatment of melancholy.
THEY LOOK SO CUTE! They KIND OF look like black olives! 🤔🥰🤗💖
Wow, your ‘trip to Pakistan’ was quite quick and relatively uneventful despite the current civil unrest.
Obviously the lutus was actually a poppy, which makes sense if think it out.
Thanks for the reading World Traveling Jared. Love the Les Halles t-shirt. I hope you have many of those. I just noticed the Brasserie above.
I've noticed with heirlooms fruits or the ones closely related to their original ancestors are not usually as sweet or have the flavors of what we get in the super market that is crazy to think this might be the sweetest things they'll ever taste in their life
They had access to honey, though 💀
@@objective_psychologyyeah honey is sickeningly deadly sweet 🤢, I would say for them fruits must have been even less sweet, if they ate honey as a primary sweetener
Those sure seem to have turned you insane with how good they are.
Love this !
Sounds Wonderful. I want one to plant for my greenhouse.
Once they at it, they stopped caring about anything other than eating it.
Oh. So it was the island of the See's bordeaux bar.
these sound good, i love persimmons, dates, plums, apples, sweet potatoes, and tiny fruit.
Just looked them up. The tree kinda reminds me of loquat. Love loquats
Cheers for the sky runner music! :D
while fishing i found a small island with a soft type persimmon tree on it. it had several ripe looking fruit. if they had been completely ripe i might have considered them lotus fruit and stayed on the island. Luckily every other bite of this persimmon went from sweet to Astringent! I was saved :-D
I wonder if these are some special variety, or even an hybrid?
The variety you got doesn't look like what I've seen before. Blacker, more elongated than usual, and it's normally full of seeds (with little pulp).
I didn't know they're popular in Pakistan, but looking on the internet they seem the same as European, and also with seeds.
Taste description pretty much fits anyway, but from my experience sweetness varies a lot from tree to tree.
Just realised that is the thing we call "black date" in Chinese. This is eaten dried in China in the past, but now it is rarely eaten due to not delicious and difficult to commercialize.
Sometimes dried ripe "jujube" is called "black date" in China also, but it can also be dried to make "red dates".
Interesting. Opeth (fave band!) has a song called 'The Lotus Eater'
ooh, the dried version sounds really neat!
I would love to see a video of you re-visiting the Honeyberry/Haskap. I know you've done a video on them, but there are newer varieties that are reportedly much tastier and sweeter, such as Aurora, Giant's Heart, Blue Banana, Boreal Blizzard, and Dr. Maxine Thompson's varieties. If you could get your hands on some, I would love to hear your thoughts on them!
The more you analyze it, it just sounds better and better...
Got my attention!!🎉❤🎉
I've heard that the local, wild variety of persimmons have skin that can for indigestible "wads" in the stomach. Ring any bells? Thanks for all the great videos.
Frankly it sounds more like they met people eating opium poppies.
I thought lotus eaters were people that just ate of the root of lotus? The description says it is of a flower, which is the most prominant feature of a lotus. If you lived in ancient times, having a starchy tuber to eat (in a time before potatoes were availible in europe) might make you go mad. Bear in mind, they would have had a REALLY high grain diet, so I'd image bread can only be so sweet...
D. lotus seems to be the exclusive species used as a persimmon rootstock in California, probably because the Mediterranean (*dry* summer) climate is impossible for Diospyros virginiana (native to Eastern Woodlands, and used as a rootstock in the Southeast USA, with the possible exception of drier parts of TX, where D. texana should make more sense).
That's neat. You should try sea mango.
"Put it down Jack!"...." Its a harmless flower!"..."You mean like a space flower?"...." Well why not a space flower?"...."Why do we always expect metal ships?"...." I've never expected metal ships!" You get a gold star if you already know what movie quote.
Don't make me force you back onto the boat 😂
They are very pretty.
Considering the half rotten stale food and fish was about the only food on ships that went on long journeys back then I would not want to give up fresh food either.
You should try a cubensis fruit! Legend has it the mushroom was the tree of knowledge. There's an old painting depicting Adam and Eve by a mushroom like tree with a snake coiling around the mushroom/tree of knowledge.
You are pretty awesome. Not too sweet, but very interesting and FUNNY!
It's a good thing to try the dried fruit once you are already back home...
When you're stuck with ship's rations for months, I'm sure anything that isn't dried or jerky would be amazing.
You should also try macapuno its an abnormal genetic development of coconut fruit and it taste so good. Its widely eaten here in the philippines
I have a video on it coming soon. Right now there is a RUclips short
I wonder what their basis for comparison was in Homer's time. We have an abundance of fruit from all over the world available to us now. But what was available in Homeric Greece? Maybe it genuinely would have been phenomenal compared to other fruits that the average soldier had been able to try.
Quince (from the Caucasus), Cornelian cherry (from Anatolia), European grapes (Caucasus, but spread in prehistory, mostly for vine), and olives (not really eaten as a fruit) would have been grown in classical Greece. European pears (Pyrus communis & P. pyraster, though the latter was probably only for perry), also from the Caucasus, may have been available in inferior form. Raspberries were found on Mt Ida in Anatolia and may have spread to Greece. Pomegranates and possibly dates were probably familiar by way of Phoenician merchants, though I don't think date palms could be successfully cultivated in Greece.
Appreciate the detailed response!
I know quince are not typically eaten straight due to astringency, and cornelian cherry are also astringent if not very ripe.
Pomegranates are great IMO, but not high on sweetness. I assume figs would also have been available? Or would those have been further east?
@@sirearlgrey2036 Yes, figs should have been available.
So, there's a trick old people do with astringent persimmons that have been picked while ripe but hard where they store them in a cold but not freezing environment with fairly dry air and spray the outside with a bit of liquor (anything ~30-60proof and neutral works) to sort of put them through a controlled bletting process? Like there will be patches of squishiness around the outside, but also bits near the center that will still be hard and crispy, but also not astringent and with a deeper flavor than your typical fuyu persimmons. Does that work with these?
I always thought they were eating poppies.
My lesson from eating lychees is that both variety and freshness are important. Sometimes you think you’re eating a lychee, but do you know what variety it is? There are huge differences between breeds. So are durian and mango. What I'm saying is, the date plum you were eating may not be the same from the book.
How well could those do in a trall mix or a a topping in sundry stuff?
I'm going to guess they were actually eating Blue Lotus which can have a psychedelic effect
Have you tried Mararing fruit from Philippines? You should try it
You can fuze them to arrows to make explosive arrow heads 👍
You seem to have taken a great deal of offense where few could find any at all. That was very skillful
5:18 i wonder if drying is mainly to prevent the fruit from rotting after being blet.
Dan we want your berries
You would definitely be able to tell if there were seeds, they are nearly as big as in cultivated Persimmon. I had a seedling in my garden, which grew like crazy. The fruit were smaller and flatter than the one you are showing, so I assume it is already a selection. Mine never lost adstringency at any point and were full of seed. Long story short: I sacrificed the tree and planted a Persimmon.
Diospyros lotus is one of the trees that is on my list to get as soon as we relocate to a larger property - as they are dioecious, multiple trees must be planted in hopes that at least SOME will prove to be males .. otherwise, like the monkey puzzle tree .. no fruit. I'm glad to hear that they proved to be worth the effort!
Where can I get some of these?
Star Trek Voyager definitely stole that storyline somewhere along the lines....
Wow, those are really dark, and large for the species! The only ones I ever saw in Turkey were orange, even when so ripe that it was hard to pick them without them disintegrating. And small, only slightly larger than a red currant. I found them sweet but kind of bland.
And yeah they did have to 110% ripe! I imagine dried ones should be a lot better.
earthbound 👍
Honey 🍯 to.
What if the combination of eating flower petals , wine and persimmon flesh have a chemical reaction in your stomach. Idk.. side note I recommend a movie on freevee... (The Odyssey) With armond Asante?
bro flew over like 3 active warzones
Not exactly a fruit, but could you try potato bean (Apios americana)? Both the flowers and tubers are edible. A staple food of the Native Americans and they were likley served at the first Thanksgiving. They're wild in the US but cultivated in parts of Japan
When are you going to start trying bugs? Weird bug explorer would be interesting 🤔
I'll leave that up to someone else haha
Intense build up, with epic background music and everything, all for the payoff of 'ehhhh' 🤣
Have you tried the furuits of the devil 😂
I would love to see you try diospyros decandra. The Vietnamese gold apple. 😊 there are liked 700 species documented and I'm unsure how many are used for ebony wood or for persimmon fruit but you should try them allll
I would be expecting mangosteen flavor based on the looks of it
I took seeds from medjool dates and I germinated, and planted them. Now close to a year and a half later I have like seven date tree babies growing. Not sure what I will do with them or if I will even transfer them from the 3 gallon pots they are on but they exist. Perhaps I will sell them, my tomatoes, peppers, figs, aspargus, herbs etc take enough time without trying to grow date trees.
I always thought the Lotus Eaters were eating literal lotus. The Blue Lotus has drug qualities although I don't suspect ot being super addictive. But who knows?
🖤
Persimmon is pretty much a seedless and juicy date to me
This what had Percy Jackson trippin' in Vegas.
I wonder how it taste compared to american persimmon? Also why didn't lotus persimmon have seeds? Does it still produce fruit without male trees or some other reason? Why is it dark purpleish brown if These persimmons are typical orange? And has it been hybridized with the american persimmon yet?
Definitely said flower, there, not fruit. Also, Odysseus' crew all died soon after - so they would have been better off staying on land.
my dude just took a quick stroll to Pakistan lol
Looks like the flower bombs from Legend of Zelda
Went on an Odyssey to Pakistan for this one
Interesting thing with persimmons, atleast the American ones, the tree will always produce fruit. However if there isn't a second tree for pollination they will be seedless.
I was waiting for you to cut them to see the insides 😔
Bed that would taste yummy in some curries.
The much larger Hachia Persimmon is also astringent until FULLY ripe. They can fool you sometimes if soft. However, when the Hachia Persimmon is fully ripe and you begin to eat it, I am only barely exaggerating, you will think you done died and went to Heaven!!!
If you make wine out of these it gets you more than drunk. It's very strange.
Have you ever had a red jackfruit?
Yes there will be a future episode on it eventually. it was good! It was stronger and funkier than regular jackfruit
Love the historical context! Let’s hope you never try fruit so good that you refuse to travel and try new fruit lest the channel morph into a different review of the same fruit every week.
Is that delicious 😋 taste ?