A refrigerator designed to contain 150 kilos of fruit, a machine to wash fruits, a chamber capable of drying up to three tons of fruits, and nickel-plated tables. But is that setting enough to dry persimmon?
According to Malahat Alvasova, the manager of the Asil Cooperative that includes 11 women members, this is just half the picture of getting the job done.
Malahat is a resident of Hanifa, a rural settlement in Balakan, the farthest northwestern administrative district of Azerbaijan, and a beneficiary of the EU-funded, FAO-implemented project Development of sustainable and inclusive local agri-food systems in the north-west region of Azerbaijan.
I asked her about the ways persimmon is dehydrated. She gave the least-expected answer.
Before talking about the process of making dried persimmons, I want two or three pastoralist women to mourn the loss of fresh persimmon. Can you believe it? Well, making dried persimmons is a tough job and the process makes it so difficult for us.
There is hardly a backyard orchard without a persimmon tree or a household without dried persimmons in Balakan. Consequently, there is no winter without (dried) persimmons. Although persimmons cannot be a response to all needs, nothing can replace them either. Making dried persimmons is our ancestral tradition which people hand over from one generation to another. In the past, we dried persimmons on wood stoves but adopted a new custom – fruit drying machines – several years ago, following the launch of a dried persimmon business. This year we started using a dehydration chamber (to improve business efficiency). A fruit-drying machine can take 90 kilos of persimmon, while a dehydration chamber can absorb up to three tons. Three tons of peeled-off persimmon is the equivalent of four tons of raw fruit. And four tons are composed of different persimmon fruits harvested one by one. My motto reads, No rotten persimmon or other fruit in the village! Upon harvesting persimmons, we must rinse them thoroughly. We have got a fruit washing machine for that. Then we arrange the washed persimmons in storage containers. Then, the challenging part of the job starts. Peeling heralds the beginning of our hard time – if you fail in peeling, it is unlikely that you will get dried persimmons. On the other side, you need to peel persimmons a specific way, lengthwise. You should peel away the skin that particular way, lengthwise, to make dried persimmons look a bit elongated and aesthetic. Although we wear gloves during peeling, we sacrifice our fingernails because they become gradually eroded with iodine, a chemical found in high concentrations in persimmons. Our fingernails start growing only after the end of the persimmon season. As I said, peeling is just the beginning. In the next stage, we have to accomplish a painstaking task – we put a thread through peeled persimmons to tie them and then get them inside the dehydration chamber. Drying could last four to five days, sometimes longer, depending on the persimmon variety. Kaki persimmons have been in the dehydration chamber now for five days ago, so we have been waiting days and nights. My husband and son watch by the dehydration chamber, open it quite frequently to keep an eye on the drying process, and, whenever required, adjust the temperature and humidity conditions. Dehydration makes persimmons crusted outside but still soft inside and weigh one-fourth of their raw mass. Of the three tons of peeled persimmons going into the dehydration chamber, only 800-1,000 kilos come out dried. The dehydration chamber alone is not a guarantee of high-quality output. Frankly, that issue could also be associated with experience, given that the equipment is in its first year of operation. We need more experience to be better acquainted with its performance details. If we waste this lot, we will incur losses. If we succeed, who knows, we could put another bunch of three tons of peeled persimmon inside the dehydration chamber.
Dried persimmons imply physical work with patience. Although its name does not say it all, particularly back-breaking work, it is a delicious fruit, music to our ears – I cannot get enough! Persimmons are the bread and butter for (many) members of our cooperative. Besides, dried persimmons meet the consumption needs of our members.
My mission behind setting up this business was to support low-income families, particularly women. However, it was not easy to get them on board. A window of opportunity opened following a meeting I had with touring representatives of the Azerbaijan Rural Women Association – they were offering business initiatives to the rural people they had reached out to during their village-to-village campaign. I responded to that call and managed to gather women in our settlement together in my folk-art club. Eventually, we set off together, having long-lasting weekly discussions that took us from one house to another. In the end, ten women teamed up for the corresponding working group. Five of them soon left us, but I was determined enough not to give up. I attracted five new members, although I had to struggle and strike through a thorny path – sometimes, I was so exhausted that I just wanted to beat myself up. Nevertheless, my passion for helping people always prevailed over the vicissitudes of life.
It was around that time when my daughter called me to tell me about one needy woman who wanted to come and peel persimmons. When I asked if she had gained any experience doing that, I got a negative answer. Anyway, she arrived and told me that she would learn by watching. You could not believe how diligently she had learned to peel fruit and did that work afterwards. On the very first day, she earned 15 manats (slightly over eight euros). She went home a bit earlier and noted that she needed that income since she had to pay the transportation fare to take her husband to a doctor in the morning of the next day. I also gave her an in-kind package of persimmons, and my son arranged a car for her to get home. My itch to help people has gained a new currency ever since. Every time I remember that incident, I shed tears. Imagine the value of a woman becoming an income generator for her family! There are many rural people in need of paid work. During the (Second Karabakh) war and the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to support so many families…
Now we are a group of eleven women involved in different types of activity, such as beekeeping, hazelnut production, animal husbandry, carpet weaving, and folk art. Making dried persimmons remains, however, a seasonal business.
Persimmon season is coming to an end. I’ve promised myself to take a break until spring. However, I will probably weave carpets in winter – not large-size carpets but small ones, as souvenirs. Although I dream of being a carpet weaver all the time, I learned that trade under the ABAD (facilitated support to family businesses) project. While weaving carpets, we will see the winter ending and the spring, setting in. Then mulberry trees will ripen at the beginning of summer. Then we will harvest cherry plums, followed by black plums and figs. And I will hold firm to my motto – No rotten persimmon or any other fruit in the village! – and make dried fruit for the upcoming year. After figs, we will be harvesting persimmons. We are waiting for the supply of new machines and equipment under the EU-funded project by that time. In a nutshell, the job will keep us busy, leaving no room for us to apply nail polish.”