[Sca-cooks] RE: Plums

[Stefan li Rous]

  Lyse commented:
> Kool! So it was the reg. plumes/prunes that were used and not the red.
> My question is, did the Norse have access to the prunes/plums?
> As was stated, "....but otherwise it fits what I know about
> Hiberno-Viking
> cooking. I've read that they loved plums."
> I was wanting docs. because Norse is one of my areas of interest and
> would
> love to increase the variety to the "smorgasbord". :)

Well, here is what Baron Akim Yaroslavich has to say about plums in  
his article on period fruits in the Florilegium:
Period-Fruit-art  (60K)  1/13/02    "Fruit of Period Times" by Baron
                                        Akim Yaroslavich.

Unfortunately, it doesn't give you much direct info on plums and the  
Norse, but perhaps it will give you some references to check from.

 >>>>>>
PLUMS
Plums (Prunus domestica) also originated around Armenia in Asia Minor  
and are only botanically distinguished from cherries by their size.  
Plums were first cultivated in western China (89). Wild plums, the  
Bullace (90) (Prunus instititia), Cherry Plums (91) (Prunus  
cerasifera) and the Sloe (92) (Prunus spinosa) now grow wild  
throughout Europe and have hybridized extensively. Cultivated plums  
arose as a cross between the sloe and the cherry plum in the Caucasus  
region (93). Damsons are a variety of bullace plum well known in  
Roman times, and imported from Damascus in Syria, hence its name  
(94). At the time of Cato, Romans were familiar with prunes but not  
the plum tree itself (95). Besides the Damson, Pliney described 12  
varieties of plums growing in Italy in the 1st century A.D. (96).  
Plums have been cultivated in Europe since the 8th century and are  
recorded in England from the 13th century. Chaucer described a garden  
with "ploumes and bulaces" in 1369 (97); "Damaske or  
damassons" (damson) plums are mentioned in the 1526 Grete Herball of  
Peter Treveris (98).
The Sainte Catherine, a white plum, was an old French variety grown  
for drying and sold as the famous Pruneaux de Tours (99).
The Morocco plum was a sweet black plum listed by Parkinson in 1629  
(100) as an old plum of unknown origin.
Blue Pérrigon or the Précoce de Tours was both a blue-black prune and  
dessert plum grown in Italy and France near the Basse Alps. It was  
first imported to England in 1582. (101)
The Mirabelle de Nancy was a bullace plum grown in France in the 15th  
century. (102)
Another French bullace was the Reine Claude (103), dating in France  
from the reign of Francis I (1494-1547). It came from Italy, where it  
was called Verdocchia (104); it came to Italy from Armenia via  
Greece. This plum is better known by its English name of Greengage.
<<<<<<<

You'll have to go look at the article to get all the footnotes.

These two files might also be worth checking:
plums-msg         (24K)  2/ 6/04    Period plums and plum recipes.
fd-Norse-msg      (61K)  7/ 3/05    Norse and Viking food.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****