When the sun finally came out, it started raining plums instead.
We knew it would. The fruit fall from our two ancient plum trees had begun, as always, with a trickle, while the sharpish southerlies and incessant rain were still making our summer a grey, soggy disappointment. But as one tap was abruptly turned off, the other was thrown open, and we had a deluge of fruit, a veritable flash flood of plums.
One shouldn’t complain: our trees produce the most marvellously delicious plums called, deliciously, Duff’s Early Jewel. Their skin is a brilliant ruby red and their golden flesh sweet, but not too sweet. They are jewels all right; Michael Hill should stock them.
Sadly, I have been unable to find out who Duff is or was, when the variety was developed and whether some late monarch rightfully honoured them with some sort of gong – the Order of the Delicious Plum, perhaps. I hope so.
Duff’s plum tree does have one infuriating property, and that is its jewels ripen and drop almost all at once. Which is to say, in less time than it takes me to get to the point.
And as they do, so begins the annual business of trying to save as many as one can from rotting in the long grass.
The birds love them, of course, and get their fill. But they always leave them half eaten before starting on another.
The sheep love them, too. Xanthe, who half a million years ago I bottle-fed as a lamb, gets so excited when presented with a Duff’s Early Jewel that her tail spins like a child’s windmill. And let me tell you, there is no sight funnier than an old ewe that’s been feasting on plums. She looks like a sheila who’s applied bright red lipstick after far too many wines.
We have been giving our plums aways to friends as well, of course, though most seem to have their own plum trees.
The good thing is that this year we’ve given them to strangers, too. I managed finally to organise myself enough to do what should always be done when you have too much good food, particularly in these increasingly straitened times, and that’s give it to a food bank.
After spending an hour or so on my hands and knees sorting out enough fat ripe ones to fill four supermarket bags, our plums were duly hand-delivered to the Masterton food bank’s door.
I don’t know what I was expecting – a round of applause, a certificate for generosity, a parade? – but the nice woman who took them off my hands, and thanked me for the donation, seemed rather more interested in dealing with the person beside me, someone who was in need.
Which was fair enough. But what does it say about me that I was expecting some sort of pat on the back for doing something I should be doing anyway? Nothing good, I’d say.
The most obvious means of dealing with a flash flood of plums is to make all manner of sauces, chutneys, marinades and jams.
This has led, in the past few years, to Lush Places having a shelf-full of such condiments, and there are only so many times you can give friends a bottle of homemade plum sauce for their birthday.
This year, I figured we’d try doing something different, which meant adding alcohol. What could be better, I thought, than combining plums and gin? And so it proved.
My cocktail making has always been limited to the highly popular ones starting with “M” – margaritas, mojitos and martinis. But I will no longer be bothering with them now during the annual Duff’s Early Jewel deluge.
Let me introduce the Plum Ginger Gin Sour (pictured), made with a plum-ginger simple syrup, lemon juice, egg whites and good gin. Isn’t it pretty?
Somewhat unfortunately, it uses only two plums to make about four glasses, so I suspect it would take approximately 1000 Plum Ginger Gin Sours to get through our annual plum mountain. Fortunately, it’s the most delicious cocktail I’ve ever had. So worth a try, right?
