FOOD SPECIAL.......... PLUM

Plum Posting 

Why the plum has such a middling reputation

We aspire that we should make uses with  plum.. And as children we learn how little Jack Horner stuck his thumb in a pie and pulled out a very satisfying plum.
    Yet plums remain the least appreciated among the major temperate fruit. Apples and pears, peaches, apricots and cherries all have devoted fans, but plums rarely count as anyone's first favourite fruit. It can be seen in their price which is usually the cheapest among the stone fruits. Even those metaphors don't refer to the fruit itself, but to raisins and dried fruits in general, whose concentrated sweetness signified luxury in the days before sugar. Plum puddings contain them, but not actual plums.
    To be honest our experiences with plums tend to affirm this middling reputation. The standard red plums we get here are usually picked and sold when less than ripe, and while they will soften if you keep them, they don't get much sweeter. If you bite into one which has been carefully picked at its peak you will get a rush of sweet juice that threatens to spurt and stain your shirt. But the sweetness doesn't linger and is offset by the bitterness of the skin and in the flesh clinging to the stone.
    Every now and then though you will bite into one which suddenly shows why plums are such an old and widely cultivated fruit. Nothing could be juicier and perfectly balanced between sweetness and fruity tanginess. Fruits like apples are solidly filling, but perfectly ripe plums are liquidy and refreshing as they burst through their skins. In that moment you can understand the American poet William Carlos William writing his short poem This Is Just To Say about raiding the icebox for plums that were being saved for breakfast: "Forgive me/ they were delicious/ so sweet/ and so cold."
    The problem with plums comes from the fact that there are so many varieties. As KT Achaya notes the plum species, Prunus, can be seen as the link species for stone fruit (called because they have soft flesh around a hard central 'stone'), which is a sub-family of the Roses that grows across the Eurasian land mass. What we call plums actually refer to close cousins that share a certain appearance and taste, while other cousins, like apricots, peaches and cherries are more distinct. Yet all these cousins can cross with each other and, as is usual with such near-incest the results are often awful, but sometimes spectacular.
    The plum cousins fall into two broad families. Prunus domestica, the European side, is usually dark red or purple, and has important variants, like the damsons (Prunus domestica insititia), darker, sourer, but with a very distinctive flavour, and the greengages (Prunus domestica italica), which counter the usual plum colours by being green or greenish-yellow even when fully ripe. This must confuse customers and may be one reason why they are not grown much, which is sad since they have the reputation of being the best and sweetest of plums.
    Prunus salicina is the Asian family, called Japanese plums, though they are really from China. These were taken to the US and became the basis for many commercial cultivars developed by the pioneering American breeder Luther Burbank. He crossed them with European plums and other stone fruit like apricots. The result, called the plumcot, wasn't great, but when it was crossed again with plums the offspring, called pluots, were wonderful. Their one apricot grandparent made them smaller, but also more solid, reliably sweet and with a less bitter skin. Occasionally I find them with the Crawford Market importers, recognising them by their mottled red-yellow skin and glowing red flesh, which comes clean off the stone, and has a wonderfully sweet and subtle taste.
    Both European and Asian varieties seem to have been brought to India, the former by the British and the latter by the Mughals, who are recorded as having practiced experiments like grafting peaches onto plum trees. Ranjit Singh and SK Saxena in their book on Indian fruits say the European varieties only grow at higher altitudes, but the Asian ones can grow in the foothills. This is probably why the latter's American bred cultivars dominate the market and this is a pity because these have been bred to be convenient to harvest and transport — plum skins are tough, but can rupture in transit and then the whole fruit leaks and spoils — and not because they taste the best.
    I know that the descendents of old varieties of apples brought by the British can still be found growing in the hills, and I suspect the same is true with plums. CD's editor, who is from the hills, tells me longingly about the wonderful plums that grow near his home, but are too delicate to make it to the plains. The low prices that plums fetch are an even bigger disincentive, but I do have dreams of some enterprising fruit lover seeking out these old varieties, or even planting them again — maybe even greengages — and finding ways to bring them intact to large cities for those willing to spend on them.
    But till that happens we must make do with the regular red plums, and the best way to do that is to cook them. If they are inconsistent in sweetness, you can compensate with sugar or honey and the cooking brings out their intense tangy-sweet taste. One has to be careful since cooked plums are not a subtle flavour. They should be treated almost like a seasoning, like alu-bukhara, the sour dried plums used as a flavouring in Persian and Central Asian cooking, or umeboshi, the pickled plums (actually another cousin, Prunus mume) used in Japanese cuisine.
    Plums used in this way have many uses. They make an excellent syrup for drinks and a friend tells me how in season her family makes lots of plum sauce to use through the year on ice-cream. A plum sorbet is one of the most refreshing things to have in the course of a long meal, instantly stimulating your appetite again. The juiciness of plums also means they are among the best fruits for fermenting, another form of cooking. Plum spirits like slivovitz have helped Central Europeans like Czechs and Serbians survive their difficult histories, and on the other side of Eurasia too plum wine is popular with the Koreans and Japanese. I am told it is made in Sikkim as well, but I have never been able to try it.
    Plums are the only ingredients I have found that make wholewheat flour (atta) into a good dessert. It is healthier than plain flour, but I always felt it became too soggy and heavy in desserts until I found a recipe from expert baker Dan Lepard for a tart with a wholewheat base and topping of baked plums and a plum jam glaze. This double plum dose lifted the atta base, making for a dessert that was delicious and notably healthy too because plums are packed with vitamins, nutrients and anti-oxidants.
    But perhaps the best use of red plums is in savoury dishes. Prunes, the dried plums which are so delicious and healthy they featured long back in this column, are often used in cooking for a sweet-sour-savoury kick that works well with fatty meats like duck or lamb. Plum sauce is a Chinese cuisine staple, of course, but you can use the fresh plums directly for a similar effect.
    The British food writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has a wonderful recipe that is made by roasting a cut up chicken with ginger, garlic and chillies, and then, 10 minutes before its done, adding stoned red plums and a hefty dose of soy sauce (some mirin or honey is good too, if the plums are sour). It is a delicious dish, combining sweet, savoury and fruity flavours, and a reminder of the plum powers of this often neglected fruit.
Vikram Doctor CDET130802