I’m sure there will be a post like this every year as I struggle to handle the bounty from all of our plums. The original gardener here was amazing, and among many other riches left us three kinds of plums and greengages, with at least two trees of each.
The earliest is small red bursts of sweetness from three trees in May.
Then in June come the Mirabelles, four trees, three of them in close proximity and the branches bending to the ground with the fruit. It is a race to get there before the various insects, somebody’s offspring burrowing into the fruit to await adulthood, wasps and bees drunk on the sweetness, and birds feasting on the windfalls. Three trees together produce an excess that gives humans a fighting chance. Picking the fruit the day before perfection does the same. I make pies, jam, and preserves (in armagnac or white wine), feed them in daily basket-fulls to my mother-in-law, and still watch what seems like the bulk of them rot.
The guilt is not even fully passed before the next ones, round, purple, and tasting the way plums taste in your imagination. And, simultaneously, the hedgerows throughout the village are filled with what I (erroneously) call “pig plums.” They squelch underfoot when you go to the village garbage and recycling bins [link] — better not to go after dark for a few weeks. These are my favorites after the Mirabelles (which we are not supposed to call Mirabelles because it is a regional plum, like calling white wine full of tiny bubbles from Gaillac champagne…). Perhaps I love them so much because I have no responsibility to try to save them, so I can eat them as I walk around the village, and spend the rest of the time, like my neighbors, making jam from their domesticated cousins.
This is a village obsession that I assume is nationwide: see fruit, make jam or a tart. I love it.
On slightly cooler days when people take a walk after lunch they may well stop by with a few jars of jam to add to the collection, with more or less sugar, spices, and thickness, each a signature style and taste of its maker. Francine makes all of her jams with almost no sugar so they are thin (sugar helps jam set) and don’t keep once they are opened, but that’s ok because they are perfect poured over ice cream or cold oatmeal, or used as a glaze on a tart. Mine, in contrast, are sweet and too thick — I grew up making strawberry jam and I don’t quite have the proportions yet. The first quince jelly I made could have been used as a lethal weapon but I am learning that one and every year I get ample raw materials to practice on. I plan to use the failures to make ice cream or gelato.
