CONFITURE DE PRUNES

You don't always need a serious excuse to catch up with history. Take fruit preserves, for example. A simple delight that's easy to make and the perfect way to benefit from seasonal produce. Orange, strawberry & apricot jam are the most popular kinds that usually feature in recipes. But you can also make delicious stuff out of apples, pears, figs and even vegetables, such as tomatoes and eggplants. Today's post is about the less celebrated -but just as flavorsome- marmalade that's developed from plums.

Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Bernadotte (née Clary) in 1807

A huge appetite for plum marmalade comes with the last days of August, not only because there is an excess of fruit in our garden but also thanks to a historical novel I liked to read during school holidays: Désirée by Annemarie Selinko. Published in 1953, it's the fascinating story of a girl from Marseilles (Bernardine Eugénie Desirée Clary), who began as Napoleon's fiancée and ended up married to Bernadotte, the future king of Sweden. The fictional Desirée was a simple-minded girl who loved peace & quiet and never dreamed of climbing the social ladder. At the beginning of her marriage, she would do her own shopping and even help in the kitchen with plum marmalade, among other things.

There was a culinary guide at the time, which must have been known to bourgeois families such as the Clarys: the Nouvelle instruction pour les confitures, les liqueurs et les fruits by François Massialot was published in 1692. In this as well as in Le cuisinier roïal et bourgeois, whose revised edition came out in 1733-1734, we notice the sophisticated manner in which the chef of Philippe d'Orléans and his son the Regent of France prepared even the simplest dish. Since no major work of this kind appeared until the beginning of the 19th century, it's not unlikely that Désirée occasionally read Massialot.

Prunes, nature morte ca. 1840

Speaking of 'confitures', Massialot began his essay with detailed instructions on how to prepare the sugar. The choice of suitable fruit varieties was another important issue. For plums, Massialot advised using the 'perdrigons', the 'mirabelles', the ' prunes de l'Isle Vert' & other kinds that were flavorsome. His technique consisted of many stages. If the fruit was not ripe, you had to blanch it first - leave overnight - dry over heat - boil in clarified sugar - leave again overnight - boil in syrup, and finally transfer to jars. The process lasted 3 days so we mustn’t be astonished if the cook sometimes needed help from the mistress. Luckily, you escaped the first blanchings if the plums were ripe enough.

CONFITURE DE PRUNES
This is a simplified version of Massialot's recipe for dark plums ('confiture prunes rouges'). Choose very ripe plums and skin the fruit before cooking, if desired. 

I n g r e d i e n t s
1kg stoned plums
1kg granulated sugar

M e t h o d
1. Cook the plums with the sugar in a heavy-bottomed pan, stirring from time to time. 2. Remove the fruit and set aside. 3. Cook the leftover sugar. Add the fruit to this syrup and let boil several times, removing the scum from time to time. 4. Leave to cool for a while and put into sterilized jars. Close the lids the next morning.