Plums

Quoted message said:

I just wanted to mention that the plums in the supermarket with the
hard, yellow, sour flesh are nothing like what I used to eat. I used to
live in a house with two huge plum trees in the back yard. They had
very juicy, very soft red flesh and were extremely tasty and sweet. We
let the plums ripen on the tree and pick them every year. I think they
must sell hard ones in the supermarket because soft, juicy ones like we
had would probably get squished during transportation. There are so
many foods that have been messed up by food producers in order to make
them cheaper or more convenient or whatever. I'd like to live out in
the country and grow a lot of my own food so I can get the good stuff.

There are lots of different types of plums. Some of them are very sweet and
juicy while others tend to be a little dry and bitter/sour, like Damsons.
I bought some Italian plums at a local fruit stand a few weeks ago. I like
plums but they do a number on my guts, so I don't often eat them, but my
wife loves them. She could not eat these plums. I tried on and found it
just too sharp. We used some in a clafoutti after macerating the plums in
some brandy with a little sugar and it turned out nicely. The rest got
chopped up and boiled with a cup of sugar to make a conserve.

The conserve was powerful stuff and I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.
I ended up making a batch of ice cream and mixing the plum conserve into
that. Wow. It was delicious.

Quoted message said:

I just wanted to mention that the plums in the supermarket with the
hard, yellow, sour flesh are nothing like what I used to eat. I used to
live in a house with two huge plum trees in the back yard. They had
very juicy, very soft red flesh and were extremely tasty and sweet. We
let the plums ripen on the tree and pick them every year. I think they
must sell hard ones in the supermarket because soft, juicy ones like we
had would probably get squished during transportation. There are so
many foods that have been messed up by food producers in order to make
them cheaper or more convenient or whatever. I'd like to live out in
the country and grow a lot of my own food so I can get the good stuff.

We have a plum tree next to our driveway - a Santa Ana, I think. The
past two years we've lost all but a couple of plums (which the squirrels
got) to a late frost during blooming season, but those tree-ripened
plums are marvelous. The kids would play "plum vampires", piercing the
skins with their teeth then sucking the sweet juice and pulp out through
the punctures. The plums that we picked when they were almost ripe but
still firm ripened quite well on the kitchen counter.

Kathleen