Thursday, November 01, 2007

I love kaki!

Autumn is my favorite season since a lot of fruits are available at this time. One of them is "kaki", the French name for persimmon. Isn't it amazing how a word can mean completely different stuff in different language? Kaki = foot in Malay and persimmon in French. It also mean one type of color, kind of dark green like shown in the photo, in French.

When I was living in Austin, across my apartment there was a shopping center. They actually planted some persimmon trees there. I found it so weird to plant fruit trees in a shopping district, but was aiming to steal some of the persimmons when they got ripen. Unfortunately I never had the chance since I moved to France before autumn.

Another case of same word different meaning. The word "patron" means boss in French. So when hubby first arrived in the USA, one day he wanted to park in front of a cinema, but he saw a signboard saying that "reserve to patron only". He thought oh the parking spots were reserved for the "boss" only. Eventually he parked somewhere else. Later only he realized that patron = customer who pay visit to the business, and since then he dared to park in the "boss" area. :-)


  1. Anonymous4:16 AM

    This is kaki ?

    I know this is called "Xi You" in chinese... Healthy fruits with alot of vitamins..

  2. Anonymous6:36 AM

    It is also called "kaki" in Japanese :-)

  3. I like persimmon too :-) And I like your stories ;-) From Wiki, Kaki Persimmon or Kaki is actually the species name :)

  4. keeyit, we call this "ang kee" in hokkien.

    kuanhoong, ah, nice to know that its called kaki in Japanese too.

    beelee, oh I didn't know that kaki is the species name. This fruit is not that known in France, hubby has never tried it, nor my parents in laws.

  5. That right,I only know this fruit called Kaki in Japanese b4 I know it's called persimmons.In chinese I always called "Xhi" There is 2 type of kaki,the one very round shape is quite bitter and the best one is more flat and sweet.I learn from my ex landlord that in chinese"tong su"(book) said don't eat it after 12 pm,very bad for health & luck,Isn't true?

  6. Anonymous12:41 AM

    Kaki? Hahaha. I love persimmons, I also wrote a post about it on my blog!! Bee Ean, eat a lot of persimmons, maybe you can get pregnant too! That year I got pregnant I ate a lot of persimmons, about 3 a day. Heheh.

    Persimmons have a lot of health benefits! Persimmons are rich in sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron and manganese.


    See, persimmons are good for you!

  7. beachlover,

    I really don't know about this superstitious. 12pm is afternoon and I ate a lot of fruit including kaki during the day and night. :-)

    You should have told me earlier, aiyo with the pregnant thing. I ate 2 at once, now I need to eat 3 everyday. I will quite quite ask hubby to go buy. Run out of stock in the fridge already.

  8. Anonymous10:00 PM

    The origin of KAKI I think it's from Japanese!
    Another Japanese word is used by french is "Nashi"!

    By the way, nice to meet you, I'm a malaysian girl who live in south west of France.