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Prunes must surely be the most derided and undervalued of fruits.
But it is hardly their fault. After all, they are only plums that
have been dried. Their reputation could have been different if
more had been made of their (reputed) aphrodisiac powers: according
to legend, Eros, the Greek god of love, dipped his arrow in prune juice
for extra potency before releasing it at his targets. This practise was
modified in medieval England where bridal biscuits were enriched with
‘plumbs’, an old name for prunes.
Elevation to fashionable-food status and their designation as a
super-food have now come to prunes’ rescue at the same time as
associations with school dinners fade and sniggers about constipation
seem to have diminished.
Prunes all come from a group of oval,
black-skinned plums with a very
high sugar content, which means
they can be sun-dried without
fermenting (although nowadays the
process is often speeded by drying
machinery). They also have a ‘free’
or easily detached stone, which is
uncommon among plums.
The king of prunes is widely
acknowledged to come from the
18
Handsome is,
as handsome does
Looks can be deceptive. Hilaire Walden reveals the true beauty of prunes
It takes approximately 1.5kg
of fresh plums to produce
one kilo of prunes
Agen plum of France. The name Pruneaux d’Agen has protected
geographical indicator status from the EU, a guarantee of premium
quality and distinctive regional characteristics. They must be grown
in a designated area of southwest France, be only of Pruneaux d’Agen
origin, be hand-picked, of a certain size, and have excellent drying
qualities.
‘Eros, the Greek god of love, dipped his arrow
in prune juice for extra potency before
releasing it at his targets’
In the 1850s, cuttings from La Petite Agen were taken to
California by the Pellier brothers and grafted onto the wild American
plum tree. The French word for the plum tree was prunier so the
Americans christened the newly created fruit ‘prunes’. Today,
California provides about 70 per cent of the world’s prune supply.
Other areas of cultivation are Asia and a warm swathe of Europe from
Romania to France.
As well as being a good source of dietary soluble and insoluble
fibre (studies link to lower blood-cholesterol levels), prunes contain
high levels of anti-oxidants, which are thought to help prevent the
development of certain cancers, heart and lung diseases, and cataract
formation, slow the ageing process and aid longevity. Prunes have the
highest ranking in the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) list of
high-scoring anti-oxidant fruits, making them the most effective food
for neutralising damaging free radicals – 100g of prunes registers a
score of 5,700 points; their nearest rivals are blueberries with 2,700.