prunes

Like raisin, prune refers to the fresh fruit in French, not the dried names we use in English. Crozefond is studded with 8m tall hedges. Trees really, but all in nice, straight lines, dividing their property into 3-4 hectare (7-9 acre) plots. At least a third of these trees are wild plum trees, called mirabels. Late June and into July the trees come into their prime, yielding bucketfuls of fruit. Unlike the  homogenous fruit population we’ve become used to in big cities, each and every one of these trees are different. They ripen at different times, weeks apart. Some ripen to yield a yellow fruit, others are nearly black when sweet, and of course all the fiery shades of orange and red between. Not only do the colors differ, but each tree yields fruit with a unique flavor. It is all so beautifully variable.

I made a few tarts using the fruit a couple of weeks ago, and the idea has caught on to start using them in the farm’s pastries. So, this week, Sarah and I, along with three of the grandkids who live on the farm, went hunting, along with two five gallon buckets (and a host of smaller ones), a large sheet, and a rake (the best tool we could find to use as a hook). Blanket stretched out at four corners, the rake wielder would literally shake the fruit off the trees. About half of it landed in the sheet, the rest would fertilize the surrounding soil. The fallen fruit seems of little matter considering we snagged at least 30kg of fruit within a couple of hours.

Over Sunday lunch, with Papi, we cut open about ten of the fruit to test them using his sugar refractometer to get a gauge of the percentage of sugar in the various colors and ripeness levels (In case you’re curious, it turns out the yellows (even the ripe ones) harbor the least sugar, whereas the deep reds are the sweetest). At the end, we scooped the mangled fruit into the compost heap. Now, I’ll be the first to complain about wasting perfectly good fruit, but the stuff is literally falling off the trees. I love this place.