plums-msg – 10/9/07
Period plums and plum recipes.
NOTE: See also the files: grapes-msg, berries-msg, dates-msg, bananas-msg, figs-msg, fruits-msg, pomegranates-msg, cherries-msg, fruit-pies-msg.
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Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 17:57:23 -0500
From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Subject: Re: SC - Plums period?
Hi, Katerine here. Shirley asks about Italian plums. I have no idea
about the variety, but plums were certainly known and eaten. They are
referred to in English recipes as prunes (which are indeed plums, not
the dried things we mean), bolas, or damsyns. In Curye on Inglysch,
they occur in the following recipes:
Diuersa Cibaria 49 Qwite plumen (White Plums)
Diuersa Seruicia 76 Porreyne
Forme of Cury 98 Erbowle (Bolas, i.e., Plums)*
Forme of Cury 166 Leche frys in Lenten
Forme of Cury 172 Tartee
Forme of Cury 175 Tart de brymlent (Tart for Lent)*
Forme of Cury 177 Tartletes
* Other versions of the same recipe occur in Harley 279
(first MS in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books) PD 104
& 105, and Harley 5401 #53.
** Another version in Arundel 334, on pg. 357 of the
Society of Antiquaries/Nichols printing.
- -- Katerine/Terry
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 18:01:02 -0500
From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Subject: Re: SC - Plums period?
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.
- -- Katerine/Terry
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 20:28:32 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Plums period?
Terry Nutter wrote:
> 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
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 20:38:34 -0700
From: ladymari at GILA.NET (Mary Hysong)
Subject: Re: SC - Plums period?
Terry Nutter wrote:
> When a variety is mentioned in English recipes, it's normally damsyns,
> but I have no idea whether they are also available now.
Damson varities of plums are
very available. they are European in origin as opposed to Japanese.
There are also some other varieties native to the Americas. You've
probably eaten a Damson variety from the store.
Mairi
- --
Mary Hysong <Lady Mairi Broder> and Curtis Edenfield <The C-Man>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 13:12:47 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Plums period?
>Terry Nutter wrote:
>> Hi, Katerine here.
>> Adamantius writes:
<snip>>
>> 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?
>>
<snip>>
>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.
<snip>
Hello! A few scattered thoughts to add to the general confusion:
The words "bolas" and "bolasse" occur in Harleian MS. 279 Potage Dyvers
#104, meaning bullace plums. Recipe #105 also contains the variant
spelling "Boolas".
Gerard, 1633 ed., p. 1498, says "The Bullee and the Sloe tree are wilde
kindes of Plums, which do vary in their kind, euen as the greater and
manured Plums do. Of the Bullee, ome are greater and of better tate
than others."
"The great Damaske or Damson Plummes are dryed in France in great
quantities, and brought ouer vnto vs in Hogs-heads, and other great
vessels, and are those Prunes that are vsually sold at the Grocers, vnder
the name of Damaske Prunes: the blacke Bulleis also are those (being dryed
in the same manner) that they call French Prunes, and by their tartnesse
are thought to binde, as the other, being weet, to loosen the body.
The Bruneola Plumme, by reason of his pleasant tartnesse, is much accounted
of, and being dryed, the stones taken from them, are brought ouer to vs in
small boxes, and sold deere at the Comfitmakers, where they very often
accompany all other sorts of banquetting stuffes." (Parkinson, 1629, p.
578.)
Parkinson also lists about 60 varieties of plums.
Plum trees are very prolific, and the soft-skinned fruits are quick to rot.
I find it difficult to believe that the fruits could have all been used
fresh before they rotted. Fresh plums are also not as flavorful and sweet
as the dried prunes. Many fruits, such as cherries, grapes, and currants,
were preserved by drying in period times - why is there any doubt that
plums were dried as well? Also, in the many recipes where prunes are
called for, it is usually in combination with dried fruits such as currants
and dates.
"The late ripe Cherries which the French men keepe dried against winter,
and are by them called Morelle, and we after the ame name call them Morell
Cherries, are dry, and do somwhat bind: these being dried are pleasant to
the taste, and holesome for the stomacke, like as Prunes be..." (Gerard,
1597 ed., p. 1324.)
"To write of Plums particularly would require a peculiar volume, and yet
the end not to be attained vnto, nor the stock or kindred perfectly
knowne...
Plummes that be ripe and new gathered from the tree, what sort soeuer they
are of, do moisten and coole, and yeeld vnto the body very little
nourishment, and the same nothing good at all: for as Plummes do very
quickly rot, so is also the iuice of them apt to putrifie in the body, and
likewise to cause meate to putrifie which is taken with them.... Dried
Plums, commonly called Prunes, are wholsomer, and more pleasant to the
stomack, they yeeld more nourishment, and better, and such as cannot easily
putrifie. It is reported, saith Galen in his booke of the faculties of
Nourishments, that the best doe grow in Damascus a city of Syria; and next
to those, they that grow in Spaine...Dioscorides saith, that Damaske Prunes
dried do stay the belly... (Gerard, 1633 ed., pp. 1496-98.)
Sincgiefu/Cindy Renfrow
renfrow at skylands.net
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 16:48:04 -0500
From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Subject: Re: SC - Plums period?
Hi, Katerine here. Sincgiefu quoted Gerard at length on plums, suggests that
fresh plums are prolific and don't keep, and asks why one should assume
that they were not dried like other fruits.
I suspect the answer has to do with where and when. I am frankly reluctant
to accept a description of practices from the mid-17th century as telling
me much (or indeed anything) about practices in the 13th to 15th. Setting
aside the sheer passage of time (350 years was a long then as it is now),
culinary practices changed radically between the 15th and 16th centuries.
There are several indications that plums were used fresh. For instance,
the recipe for Bolas in the first manuscript in _Two Fifteenth-Century
Cookery-Books (H279 PD 104, p. 24-5) calls for washing them clean before
putting in liquid to boil; a step that is hardly necessary for dried fruit,
and does not, to the best of my knowledge, occur in any recipe with
regard to dried fruit. (It also does not echo a list of similar opening
instructions in previous recipes.) You see the same thing in the recipe
for Porryene (Diuersa Servicia 76, p. 76, _Curye on Inglysch_), which
also says to take the "fayrist". One sees such indications with fresh
ingredients, but you don't see suggestions to take the best of dried
fruit.
There are recipes, especially for pies, in which we have no indication
whether the plums are dried or fresh, but in which we also see dried
fruit (dates, raisins, currants). In these cases, it seems reasonable
to guess that they may be dried; then again, most of these recipes
call for apples, pears, or both, and there is no reason at all to
believe that these were most often used dried (as opposed to held
over season in cellars or similar storage, a practice that continued
into this century).
As to the prolific nature of the trees: most surviving recipes are
believed to stem from the kitchens of great households, which were
cooking for hundreds. (Amounts, when they are given at all, tend to bear
that hypothesis out.) I see no reason to suppose that such households
could not consume the output of a fuit tree -- especially considering
that serving manuals indicate that soft fruit was typically placed on
the table at the end of the meal, with soft cheese, wafers, and
hypocras.
There may well have been a trade in dried prunes; but if so, it would
have existed for the same reason as trade in other dried fruit (like
raisins): not because it wasn't possible to consume the fresh grapes,
but because there was an independent market for dried ones. I'm
certainly open to the notion that dried prunes may have been used in
the 13th to 15th centuries; I rather suspect that in some of the pies,
they were dried. But I would want stronger evidence before
I claimed it for a fact. I do think that the evidence supports the
view that the dishes in which plums were the main ingredient used
them fresh.
- -- Katerine/Terry
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 09:29:56 -0400
From: Sharon L Harrett <ceridwen at commnections.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Plums period?
In "Medieval English Gardens", Terese McLean quotes several monastic
rolls from the 13th to 15th centuries, indicating that from these
sources at least, plums were usually used fresh, and wew stored after
harvest in barrels of bran or straw, requiring the cook to sort them out
before serving them. She also indicates that plums, along with certain
other soft fruits were not eaten until they were "ripe to the point of
(near) rotten (Neckham, 13th.C.)
Ceridwen
Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 08:23:41 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Jellies vs. aspics
> Probably the closest thing to conserves or fruit paste would be latwerge,
> basically fruit thickened by cooking it down. I think Kuchenmeysterei (c.
> 1490) might have a recipe, I don't know of any others.
>
> Valoise
Latwerge, huh? This wouldn't be made from plums, would it? There is a
thick plum butter found in Poland, I believe, called lekvar. I wonder if
there's some etymological cognate voodoo going on here...
Adamantius
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 05:53:02 -0500
From: Melanie Wilson <MelanieWilson at compuserve.com>
To: "INTERNET:sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu" <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: Sloes
Sloes are the wild plant that plums were bred from, they are very bitter
but have been used in history for jellies (I hope you know the type I mean
for meat & so on) flavouring drinks etc.
You pick them and stab them with one of their own thorns, here(UK) they
grow wild in the hedgrow & are used quite a lot by us country yokels :)
Mel
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:05:55 -0500
From: capriest at cs.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Sloes
Aralyn asked:
>Isn't sloe another name for juniper berries?
Maybe it is over here, but I don't think it is in Europe. In the European
archaeological literature I've read, the species of sloe found at several
Viking Age sites was _Prunus spinosa_, which is a species of plum not native
to the New World. It's also called blackthorn or wild plum, although it's
not the same as the American wild plum.
Carolyn Priest-Dorman Thora Sharptooth
capriest at cs.vassar.edu Frostahlid, Austrriki
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 10:55:48 -0600
From: Roberta R Comstock <froggestow at juno.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: cherry wine
>> What is a sloe?
A sloe is the fruit of the blackthorn (Prunus spinosa). It is a small,
sour, blackish plum-like fruit, best known to many in this day and age as
the flavor and coloring agent of sloe gin. The name is also applied to
other closely related plants and their fruits. (Random House College
Dictionary, Revised Edition 1980)
Hertha
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 08:05:45 -0700
From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Plum loco
My parents have two plum trees just dripping, even drooping with fruit.
Cherry-sized golden plums and slightly larger purple-red plums. I came
home last night with three bags full and learned some useful things.
1. The Juiceman Juicing Machine is not necessarily the most efficient
way of making juice from soft fruit.
2. Plumstones and gunstones both travel at a high velocity. ZOUNDS!
I gave up on the juicer after the first bag, although I now have two
liters of wonderful nectar with I will freeze and use later. The reds I
will make my traditional Plum Butter, which is just equal parts plum
puree and sugar, cooked until thickish. Maybe do a batch with honey for
that really, really historical effect, but it's going to take a long
long time to cook.
Plum vinegar [now there's a potential jalab!], plum brandy, plum vodka,
I'm plumb tired out already and the tree hardly looks like I've been
picking. Any more ideas, period recipes or such?
Selene the rosy-fingered
From: Christina Nevin <cnevin at caci.co.uk>
To: "SCA-Cooks (E-mail)" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 10:04:38 -0000
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: To bake a tarte of prunes (redaction and questions)
Sabina Welserin has a recipe that specifies, i.e.:
70 A tart with plums, which can be dried or fresh
and the next recipe is:
71 Another tart with fresh plums
Below is my redaction of the same recipe. I did it five years ago, and
probably isn't quite how I would do it nowadays, but it's sometimes useful
to compare different versions. As I remember, the filling was quite stodgy,
baked to a firm (Christmas) fruit mince consistency, and was one dish at
that feast that was completely eaten at the table.
To make a Tarte of Prunes: Take Prunes and wash them, then boil them with
faire water, cut in halfe a peny loaf of white bread, and take them out and
strain them with Claret wine, season it with sinamon, Ginger and Sugar, and
a little Rosewater, make the paste as fine as you can, and dry it, and fill
it, and let it drie in the oven, take it out and cast on it Biskets and
Carawaies.
12 oz (350 g) prunes
4 ox (100 g) fresh white breadcrumbs
=BD pint (275 ml) red wine
1 tsp (5 ml) cinnamon
1 tsp (5 ml) ground ginger
3 oz (75 g) sugar
1 T (15 ml) rosewater
Short (not flaky) Pastry sheets
Soak the prunes overnight. Line a pie dish with the pastry and bake blind
(ie line pastry with greaseproof paper and fill with beans or ceramic baking
beads) at GM 7, 425 degrees F/220 degrees C for 15 minutes. Remove paper and beans/beads.
Simmer the prunes in a little water for 10 - 15 minutes until tender. Drain
and stone the prunes then blend them with the other ingredients to form a
smooth thick paste. Spoon the filling into the pastry case, and return to
the oven to bake at GM 4, 350 degrees F/180 degrees C for 1 hour 30 minutes. Serve either hot or cold.
Ciao
Lucrezia
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia | mka Tina Nevin
Thamesreach Shire, The Isles, Drachenwald
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003 18:44:02 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: plums in plum pudding
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> Makes sense, but I wonder at what point "prune" came to mean "dried
> plum", when it used to mean, to English-speakers, a variety of plum
> that frequently comes to us imported in dried form.
>
> Adamantius
Prunes are several varieties of plums, and modernly, particular hybrids
developed for drying.
"Prunus" (or "prunum") is the Latin for plum, as well as being scientific
name for the genera of plums. It appears in a number of forms in European
languages. Plum appears to be a derivative of the Latin neuter plural,
"pruna," apparently entering English from Old Low German. Plum and
prune are interchangable until late in SCA period.
The dried fruit was originally referred to as "dried plums" or "drie prunis"
(from a 14th Century reference). By the 15th or 16th Century, prune was
being used to refer to the dried fruit.
Curiously, prune was also used to refer to raisins in Victoria's day.
Bear
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2003 18:02:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: plums in plum pudding
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Here is what the Oxford Companion to Food says in
part about plums and prunes:
PLUM, the fruit of Prunus domestica and other
Prunus ssp. Other members of the genus include
the apricot, peach, sloe, and cherry. The
relationship between plums and cherries is
particularly close, the distinction being mainly
one o