THERE is something rather bewildering about plums,’ writes Christopher Stocks in the excellent Forgotten Fruits. Although, initially, I wasn’t exactly sure why. They don’t stink of death and fetid drains, like the durian. Nor, unlike the kiwano melon, do they have the texture of cucumber and taste of banana. There’s certainly nothing perplexing about their flavour, which moves from the mouth-puckeringly sour to the lusciously and lasciviously sweet. Nor their colour, deep black to virgin white, with every shade in between. No, as Mr Stocks explains, it’s simply a matter of nomenclature. ‘Apples are always called apples, although they come in many different forms. A plum, by contrast, can certainly be a plum, but it can also be a damson, a bullace, a greengage or a Mirabelle.’ Their ancestry may be ‘complex’, their history ‘convoluted’, but the ‘real nightmare lies in the names of this fruit’.
He’s not wrong. Plums have been cultivated for more than 2,000 years in Europe and Asia and probably came to Britain with the Romans —although possibly before, as plum stones have been discovered during the archaeological excavation of Maiden Castle, an Iron Age hill fort in Dorset. The best known are Prunus domestica, or the large ‘European’ plum, which are the blessed hybrids of the sloe (P. spinosa, not considered a plum) and the cherry plum (P. cerasifera). That first union happened naturally, somewhere around the foothills of the Caucasus mountains, in the Russian republic of Adygea.
There is not only the ‘Victoria’ plum, but the small and super-sour bullace; the ‘Mirabelle’, mostly used for jams and brandy; and the damson, which comes from Damascus and arrived in Europe with the Crusaders. The greengage, with its heaven-scented flesh, is another member of the same family and a plum that connoisseurs rate as best of them all.
Denne historien er fra August 21, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra August 21, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
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The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds