Not grasping the meaning of this sentence (にして)

[fielle]

I am reading through the 日本語誤用辞典, and I came across this sentence which I am having trouble understanding.

この柿はじゅくし柿にして食べたほうが、ずっとおいしいですね。

I am particularly stuck on the "にして". What does it mean in this context, and what would you say is the translation of the whole sentence?

The book also uses this as an example where ずっと is a better choice than 一番, but even after reading the explanation I'm not entirely clear on why ずっと is a good choice.

The original sentence is "この柿はじゅくし柿にして食べた方が一番おいしい食べ方ですね。" and was written by a Korean student, if that provides any more insight into the meaning.

Thanks!

[Ongakuka]

にする is either 'make into' or 'go with (as in making a decision) right?' The sentence is saying that it is far more tasty if one prepares the kaki in a manner that it will be the jukushi (I don't really know much about 料理 so I hope that makes sense.)

ずっと is very natural here since it sounds like 'far more tasty' rather than something like 'tastiest'

[fielle]

That feels like a reasonable explanation, Ongakuka. じゅくし appears to mean something like "ripe," which makes your explanation a little weirder (how can you make something ripe?), but if we say in English "If you wait for it to be ripe, it will be much tastier," that would make sense.

I guess I still associate ずっと primarily with something like "always" or "for the duration," so combined with something non time-based threw me off a little.

[Ranja]

Um... have you ever googled (or google.co.jp-ed) 熟し柿（じゅくしがき）?
It's a noun by itself.

文法的には、

やきりんご（焼き林檎）
ほしぶどう（干し葡萄）= raisin

と同類の言葉ですね。
（名詞の前の動詞が、こっちは他動詞ですが、いいのかな？ ）

ちなみに、「熟柿」で「じゅくし」とも読むようです。柿（kaki）という漢字の音読みは「シ」だそうです。（今初めて知りました。 ）

Anyway, じゅくしがき is not a well-known word in Japan.

[fielle]

I hadn't tried looking up the combined word on google, because I had thought that じゅくし was just a regular modifier of 柿.

Maybe it is like seeing "yellow bellied" and knowing that it doesn't mean that someone has a yellow-colored stomach. Sometimes it is hard to figure it out without external help.