Pla-Pla-Pla-Plu-Plum

Saucyman, I want to know more about plums, what can you tell me about them that wikipedia can’t? Plum Crazy

On the west coast there is about a 6-8 stretch starting in mid-July that is plumocopia. (The suffix ‘plazooza’ has officially retired.) Unfortunately, the season is almost over. During this magic time, occuring between the tail end of cherry and the start of apple time, shoppers can find yellow plums, green, purple, crimson, red fruits and plums that are almost blue in appearance – it is white powder or bloom that covers the fruit, it is perfectly natural, which isn’t reassuring since mold is natural, but in this case it is not indicative of rot or an impending need to compost.

There are a few reasons for the rainbow of color: Plums are everywhere - either Asiatic, new world or old world in origin. Even in the free-swinging plant world, plums are thought to be promiscuous, pollinating any which way the wind blows. The fruit also have a special place in nursery history: Luther Burbank loved to mess with the tree, crossbreeding and generally making what are thought of as improvements – bigger, sweeter, juicier - to the fruit until he successfully produced the Santa Rosa Plum. In an era where man’s salvation or at least improvement in quality of life came through science and innovation, Burbank was a Titan. The Thomas Edison of the garden, the Henry Ford of food, his promotion of something as lowly as a plum insured its popularity. So much so that his Santa Rosa accounted for 1/3 of the plum sales in the 1960s and still holds 1% of the market share, being one of the few plums that are sold by name. Research indicates displaying a variety of colors increases the sale of plums, so produce managers keep the demand for different colors of the fruit alive.

Plums, as mentioned in a previous post, are members of the prunus family, which include peaches, almonds, apricot and cherries. Since this is something that wikipedia would let you know, we won’t dwell on the subject. Botanically, plums are closely associated to cherries, the main difference being a matter of size and concentration of flavor. And before you say “no, that can’t be”, try a really small plum, the texture, consistency and even the stone will resemble a cherry. The plum’s flavor does differ slightly from the cherry, the taste derives from its cousin’s almondy aldehydes and the peachy lactones with a nice mix spicy methyl cinnamate.

A ripe plum should be deeply and richly colored, firm but not spongy, the same consistency as a good cherry. The fruit can ripen off a tree, leave at room temperature and once ripe can be stored in the fridge for 7-10 days. Plums are the fruitdaddy of both Pluots and Plucots, which are new to the produce world, born in 1989/1990 and surprisingly account for 25% of plum sales but more about the hybrid fruit in the next post.