柿子紅於秋，初秋藏密葉，深秋傲枝頭。「柿子如丹綴土城」（明·袁宏道），紅透了的柿子，也為秋涼綴上了點點暖意。柿子是水果中的一種，但在水果中卻不典型。說到水果，人們總會對香蕉、蘋果、橘子之類如數家珍，而柿子卻極難被提及。柿子屬於水果中的雜類，印象中難登大雅之堂。不過，這雅與不雅並不在口感好壞或者營養大小之上。
柿樹很容易成活，插根枝條就能長於房前屋後。水澤、溝邊有麗影，曠野、山坳有野生，像沒人疼的野孩子，活得潑皮。柿子不到成熟是不會有人去碰的，因為生澀，且澀到絲毫不可吃的地步，連嘴饞者也望而卻步，所以總能「頤養天年」，活出個「林紅柿子繁」（宋·范宗尹）、「野鳥相呼柿子紅」（宋·鄭剛中）的暖秋景象。只有上了年歲的農家人，才會將掉落的青柿子「懶」在水缸裡，任其半個多月懶著不動，之後苦澀脫去，搖身一變為脆甜，遂成「懶柿子」是也。
柿子食用是最基本的功能，除了作為水果直接食用外，還可把柿子曬乾做成「柿餅」，或者打碎和在麵粉裡做成「柿饃」。食用之外，還可藥用及其他工業所用。即便是苦澀的青柿子，也有它的妙處。它偶爾可作肥皂，而且比肥皂好用。在產煙區，摘青菸葉炕煙的農活最髒不過，即使把肥皂打在手上，不過上幾天黑黏煙油也斷斷揮之不去，但擦上青柿子汁，卻事半功倍。男孩子喜歡塗抹全身，縱身躍入池塘，一洗了之。柿子價值不小，柿木更是如此。在水塘邊洗衣服若能用上一根柿木棒槌，算是一種造化，它和桃木梳子、柳木菜墩一起，構成了典型的幾種專門用材，就連河南人附和贊同時所說的「是木」（是麼），也幾乎都會聽到一句戲謔的回應：「柿木鏇棒槌」。
成熟時，柿子有黃、紅之分。黃的如陸遊所見「牆頭累累柿子黃」，多為方形，個兒較大，我們稱之為「蒸饃柿子」，若蒸饃（饅頭）一般大小。但最誘人的莫若橢圓形的紅柿子，通紅欲滴，嬌嫩備至。如果說黃柿子是女漢子，那麼紅柿子就該是嬌小姐了。
嬌小姐是需要用心呵護的，你用手託著，她就會在手心裡溫柔地滾動，但有愛憐意，就有點像唐僧看著人參果不忍下嘴。她很嫩，用土話說的「一掐一股水」，並不足以狀述其嫩。將薄如蟬翼的紅色嫩皮揭掉，下面竟還有一層更薄的半透明白色嫩膜。為保持好的賣相，賣柿子的斷不會一股腦將柿子疊壓在一起，而是平著放，且只碼一層，下面通常襯層藍布，冷藍對暖紅，襯託出了柿子色彩的靈動，一件藝術的擺設，就這麼自然天成。
賣柿子的摘下的多是半熟品，軟硬不一，所以就有了「老太太吃柿子——專挑軟的捏」這句歇後語，此語雖然經常被用來表達恃強凌弱，但對於柿子而言，卻是實情。如果全部等熟透了才去銷售，怕是包裝和運輸都要特別地「小心輕放」了。
紅柿子中還有猩紅的，紅得厚重，紅得搶眼，我們稱之為「柿幼」，土話取柿子的兒子或小柿子之意，體型略小，一棵樹上也不過幾枚，總是先於其他柿子成熟。此時的樹葉還很綠，柿幼就「秀」於濃密的綠葉之間，當微風掀起樹葉的一角，就會間或閃出柿幼紅彤彤的身形，惹得行人和小鳥莫不為之垂涎，饞嘴的孩子彈弓、坷垃齊上，而老鴰和大喜鵲總能用長長的尖嘴巧取其肉。等打下柿幼或待它自然落下時，有些已經殘缺不全，所以一半乾癟一半滿，就成了它的常態，但剩餘部分卻仍會被喜食者吸吮：小鳥眼力不凡，其獵獲對象堪稱甜蜜之最。
柿子生於春而熟於秋，經過了春夏秋三季的沐浴，所以美豔，尤其在白露霜降之後，「柿葉翻紅霜景秋」（唐·李益）、「柿子霜紅滿樹鴉」(宋·何夢桂），早已司空見慣。「園紅柿葉稀」（唐·張籍），甚至在樹葉落淨的枝頭、在最高處傲然掛著的那幾枚，定不會負了「霜含柿子鮮」（明·蔡文範）的美譽。如丹之柿，遂成暖秋的標誌。
【發表於《達拉斯新聞》】
Persimmons Red, Autumn Aglow
譯/周領順 Lus Shih
Persimmons ripen red in autumn. They stay nestling among the thick foliage of their trees in early autumn, and remain dangling on their branches towards the end of the season. As the Ming poet Yuan Hongdao (1568-1610) has it in his poem, 「The persimmon red adds hue to hills.」 Persimmons, at their peak in color, cast a warm tone over the coolness of autumn. Though a fruit by nature, they are an atypical member of the fruit family. Upon mentioning of fruit, people tend to enumerate banana, apple or orange, but seldom persimmon, if ever. As a minority, persimmons may not be decent enough to be presentable. The sense of decency or indecency of a fruit is by no means made up by its flavor or nutritional values.
Persimmon trees are easy to survive, able to propagate and grow from cuttings that are planted around a residence. They are well-adapted to a wide range of soils, near the water or by the ditch, and in the wilderness or between hills, and grow up where they are, unhindered, like an unruly child with little parental care. Persimmons are hardly ever eaten before they are fully ripened, for they are so astringent when unripe as to be utterly unpalatable, and will intimidate a true foodie out of his temptation to try them unripe. Owing to this property, the fruit get to enjoy a happy and leisurely life on their trees until late autumn, at which time they hang ripe among red leaves in numerous clusters, with birds cheeping and chirping around in the air. It is only elderly village folks who will spare time to gather green persimmons that are fallen on the ground, and leave them resting 「lazily」 in a water vat until more than two weeks later, when these green persimmons are eventually rid of their astringency, and become amazingly sweet and crispy, hence their nickname 「lazy persimmons」.
Persimmons are primarily a source of food for consumption. In addition to being consumed fresh, they are often dehydrated in the sun into dried persimmons, or dried and ground into crumbs to be mixed with flour for making 「persimmon pancakes」. Persimmons boast a wealth of benefits, medicinal and commercial as well as nutritional. The green and astringent fruit can do a magical job by serving once in a while as a better substitute for an ordinary soap. In the process of plucking tobacco leaves for flue curing in the 1970s, for example, hands were often stained black by sticky tar, and this tarry residue was hard to cleanse off even with soap, and it would stay for at least several days. However, if green persimmon juice was applied, removal of the residue could be done much quicker and easier. Teenage boys who helped parents in this job preferred a better way out simply by slathering the juice to the whole body, jumping into a pond, and having the stubborn stain all rinsed off in there. Persimmons are of great value, and so is the wood of their trees. A laundry bat made of persimmon wood is a sought-after tool that a woman can luckily use in washing clothes in the pond. This wood is among the three typical ones for their specific purposes, the other two being peach wood for combs and willow wood for chopping boards. Therefore, many times, if not always, in communications between natives of Henan province, one's utterance 「shimu」 (「shime」 being the standard form in Mandarin Chinese), namely a question tag for affirmation that happens to be a homophone for 「persimmon wood」, will be followed by the other side of communication with a facetious 「shimu xuan bangzhui」 (「shimu」 for 「persimmon wood」, 「xuan」 for 「to shape on a carpenter’s tools」, and 「bangchui」 for 「laundry bat」).
Mature persimmons range in color from orange to red. The orange ones, which the Tang poet Lu You (1125-1210) saw and described in his poem as 「Persimmons dangling in orange clusters over the fence wall」, are squat in shape, and slightly bigger about the size of a 「zhengmo」 (steamed bun), hence their name 「zhengmo shizi (steamed bun-like persimmon)」 in Henan dialects. Of the two, the more enticing are the red oblongs, lustrous in color and tender in texture. If an orange one can be likened to a 「Miss Robust」, a red one is definitely a 「Miss Delicate」.
「Miss Delicates」 are to be loved. Sitting in your open palm, a 「Miss Delicate」 can rock gently to the movement of your hand. Your heart is melting, and you are hesitant at the thought of ingestion, somewhat like Buddhist monk Tang Seng in Monkey, who cringed with guilt at the baby-shaped ginseng fruit offered to him for eating. 「Miss Delicates」 are much more tender, such that the colloquial expression 「Liquid can be squeezed out of it」, which describes a good state of hydration, is an understatement for their tenderness. After the gauzy red outer skin is removed, there is one more layer underneath, a whitish membrane that is thinner and translucent. For them to present a good look, these red globes are never to be piled up. Instead they are arranged on a flat surface one after another in one layer only. More often than not, a blue cloth additionally goes under the fruit, and in stark contrast to this blue, the persimmon red is even more vivid and lively, making the display enough of an artistic work.
Persimmons for sale normally have to be harvested firm-ripe, and they vary in their softness of consistency at this time. The Chinese saying 「A toothless granny will pinch and choose a soft persimmon to eat」, which is a metaphor for 「bullying the weak」, is indeed a true statement for persimmons. If completely mushy, the fruit must be handled with extreme care in their packaging or transportation.
Some persimmons are crimson red, so intensely and so eye-poppingly. They are called, due to their smaller size, 「shiyou」 in Henan dialects, meaning 「child of a persimmon」 or 「diminutive persimmon」. 「Shiyou」 persimmons that a tree can bear are limited in number, several at the most, and they tend to ripen quicker than the others on the same tree. By then, a persimmon tree, still dressed in verdure, provides a green shelter for its 「shiyou」. The breeze blowing thick leaves apart unveils 「shiyou」 persimmons in their charming red, which attracts hungry attention from both humans and birds. To access the fruit, birds like crows or magpies will make a convenient use of their long beak while gluttonous boys will have to resort to the catapult or earth lumps. Among the 「shiyou」 persimmons that are shot down or fall off by gravity, some are no longer intact in that only half of the globe is left, and the other half gone, having been pecked up by birds with only a dried surface left. What remains of these fallen persimmons will then continue to be enjoyed by human predators as a delicacy. Birds are connoisseurs of fruit, and precisely pick the very most luscious one to feed on.
Persimmons start life in spring and mature in autumn. Their journey of life through three seasons lends them a beautiful flavor and glamour. Especially after the frost begins to descend at 「White Dews」, the scenes are becoming prevalent that, touched by frost, persimmon leaves are putting on a stunning show of their changing colors, and persimmon fruit are alluring crows to their trees in flocks by flaunting their flaming red. With the reddening of the fruit, persimmon leaves meanwhile keep falling off. Persimmons that remain on their bare branches will justify the reputation that the fruit taste even better after the frost hits. Persimmons set autumn aglow with a vibrancy of red.
特別說明：原文發表於《達拉斯新聞》，譯文發表於《英語世界》，本次推送獲作者授權，特此說明，謹致謝忱！