SC - Plums period?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Terry Nutter wrote:
> 
> Hi, Katerine here.
> 
> Adamantius writes:
> 
> >If you're talking about the little Italian Prune plums, then while I
> >don't know for sure that they're period, I can only assume that
> >something very like them were what dried prunes were made from. They, of
> >course, were pretty widely used in perod, all over Europe.
> 
> Hmmm... "prune" is the Middle English word for plum (well, one of them;
> an earlier is "bola").  In English recipes, there's no indication that
> prunes are used dried, and expert opinion is primarily to the contrary.
> But I don't know about the continent.  I've been assuming that they were
> using the fresh too; but that's an assumption.  Do you have any data?
> 
> When a variety is mentioned in English recipes, it's normally damsyns,
> but I have no idea whether they are also available now.

Damson plums may have been a Middle Eastern import, like several other
items supposedly from Damascus. You can generally find damson plum
preserves in many supermarkets.

I can't think exactly where, but I'm sure I saw a recipe from the
medieval English corpus that calls for bullace plums, another variety
which I seem to recall is an unusually firm, "cooking" plum.

My only real evidence that suggests that dried prunes were used is from
comparatively late period. I do think it significant, though, that in
some of the earlier recipes calling for several fruits, the fruits seem
to be listed according to their state of freshness, which might also be,
coincidentally or not, an indication of diminishing quantity in the
recipe. So, you have the ubiquitous apples and pears, folowed by
raisins, dates, currants, and prunes. I guess if the prunes show up
(when they do at all) right after the pears, then there's no way of
knowing.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is a question of availability,
with fresh and dried being used interchangeably, depending on the
season.  It seems pretty clear that the later sources, many of which
call for prunes to be soaked in warm water or wine until they plump up,
are calling for dried fruit.

Adamantius    
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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