Ingredient: Plums, greengages and damsons
Category: Fruit
Season: Summer
A plum or gage is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus, (subgenus Prunus). The subgenus is distinguished from other subgenera (peaches, cherries, bird cherries, etc) in the shoots having a terminal bud and the side buds solitary (not clustered), the flowers being grouped 1-5 together on short stems, and the fruit having a groove running down one side, and a smooth stone.
Plum fruit is sweet and juicy and it can be eaten fresh or used in jam-making or other recipes .
Plum juice can be fermented into plum wine ; when distilled, this produces a brandy known in Eastern Europe as Slivovitz, Rakia, Tzuica or Palinka.
Dried plums are known as prunes . Prunes are also sweet and juicy and contain several antioxidants.
Prune marketers in the United States have, in recent years, begun marketing their product as "dried plums", because "prune" has negative connotations connected with elderly people suffering from constipation .
Various flavours of dried plum are available at Chinese grocers and specialty stores worldwide.
They tend to be much drier than the standard prune. Cream, Ginseng, Spicy, and Salty are among the common variety flavours. Liquorice is generally used to intensify the flavour of these plums and is used to make salty plum drinks and toppings for Shaved Ice or baobing.
Pickled plums are another type of preserve available in Asia and international specialty stores.
The Japanese variety, called umeboshi (or ume) ( Prunus mume) , is often used for rice balls, called "Onigiri" or "Omusubi". The Ume, (from which umeboshi are made) is however more closely related to the apricot than to the plum.
Prune kernel oil is made from the fleshy inner part of the pit of the plum.
Plums come in a wide variety of colours and sizes. Some are much firmer-fleshed than others and some have yellow, white, green or red flesh, with equally varying skin colour.
Plums and prunes are known for their laxative effect. This effect has been attributed to various compounds present in the fruits, such as dietary fibre, sorbitol, and isatin.
Prunes and prune juice are often used to help regulate the functioning of the digestive system.
Plum cultivars in use today include:
Damson, or Damask Plum
Greengage, or greengage plum (firm, green flesh and skin even when ripe)
Mirabelle (a dark yellow plum predominantly grown in northeast France)
Satsuma plum (firm red flesh with a red skin)
Golden or yellow gage plum (like the greengage, but yellow)
There are several other varieties of home-grown plums, all suitable for cooking or eating raw when fully ripe.
Greengages, because of their colour, are deceptive, they can look unripe and forbidding but taste very sweet.
The damson is small and oval, almost almond-shaped, with dark indigo-purple skin, covered in a soft bloom and bright-green, sharp-sour flesh that when cooked with sugar, produces darker, reddish-purple juice.
The secret of the damson’s utter charm is that because it’s a sharp fruit its flavour is not killed by sugar, so damson jam remains perfectly tart and not over-sweet. |