[Sca-cooks] plums

[Terry Decker]

Italian plums (or Naples plums) are a sweet varietal of Prunus domesticus 
(sometimes appearing as P. cocomilia).  The grow regionally in SE Europe, 
Italy, the Balkans, Greece and into Turkey.  There is also the consideration 
that the "Italian plums" may be even more generic being any plum from Italy.

"...and the blond plums of autumn..." is a phrase that appears in the 
elegaic poem "Copa" from the Appendix Vergiliana (1st Century BCE).  So they 
may be of European origin, even if they are being used in Japan.  We don't 
know when they arrived.

Japan has a number of long cultivated, if not indigenous, plum species and 
varietals.

I haven't seen any references to plum wine in medieval Europe, but the 
national drink of Serbia is slivovitz and I'm willing to bet they were 
drinking plum wine before they made plum brandy.

Bear

> Selene commented:
> <<< I want a big bucket of the red ones to do more plum wine, the
> last batch
> [which I hoard fervently] came out better than the best plum wine you
> ever
> had at a Japanese restaurant.  My mother calls them ?Italian plums?
> but I
> wonder if they are not actually Japanese, particularly the golden
> ones. >>>
>
> Plums were grown in Europe.
> plums-msg         (34K)  5/13/06    Period plums and plum recipes.
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-FRUITS/plums-msg.html
>
> Perhaps some of those recipes might also be of interest to you.
>
> I've heard of plum wine before, but it has always been mentioned in
> connection to Japan.
>
> Do we have evidence of plum wine being made in medieval Europe?
> Perhaps it just that a lot more grapes were grown than plums, so
> grape wine was more prevalent? Does/did Japan grow grapes? If not,
> perhaps that would also be a reason that plum wines are more
> associated with Japan.
>
> Stefan