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Plums, French, Stewed for Dessert
Soak a pound of French plums. Put them into a saucepan with the water in which they were soaked, and let them simmer gently for an hour. Lift out the fruit, strain the liquid, and make a syrup of it by boiling with it four ounces of loaf sugar. When it is quite clear, put in the plums, the rind and juice of half a lemon, and a glass of port. Stew gently for an hour and a half. When the preparation is cold, put the plums into a glass dish, pour the syrup over them, and serve. Time, two hours and a half. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
PLUMS, FRENCH, STEWED (another way). (See FRENCH PLUMS, STEWED.)
A Victorian dessert of stewed prunes in port syrup. The method is sound; the vocabulary and the timings are what need translating.
- "French plums" are prunesThe term means dried plums, most often the Agen type from southwest France, sold whole and sometimes still with stones. A pound of pitted prunes works identically and saves the diners the trouble.
- The soakNo time is given. Overnight in cold water to cover, or two to three hours in hot water, is enough to plump them. Keep the soaking liquid: it carries most of the flavour and forms the base of the syrup.
- Loaf sugarSugar was sold in hard cones to be nipped off and crushed; four ounces of it is simply 4 oz (about half a cup) of granulated sugar. It was prized for purity rather than any difference in taste.
- A glass of portA "glass" in Victorian recipes is usually taken as about 2 fl oz, though sources vary, and it is certainly not a modern 6 oz pour. Ruby port suits it better than tawny. The alcohol will not fully cook off in a bare simmer, which matters if you are serving children.
- Total simmering timeTwo and a half hours of stewing will reduce good prunes to a pulp. Forty-five minutes to an hour in total, at a bare tremble, keeps them whole and glossy; reduce the syrup separately if it is thin.
- The lemon rindPare it in strips with a peeler and avoid the white pith, which turns the syrup bitter over a long stew. Lift the strips out before chilling.
- ServingIt is meant to be served cold, and the syrup thickens as it cools. Five or six portions, as stated; the recipe names no accompaniment, though cream, custard or a plain sponge biscuit would not be out of period.
Dried plums from the Agen district of France were a staple of the British grocer's shop through the nineteenth century, imported in boxes and jars and generally better regarded than the domestic dried fruit of the day; cookbooks commonly label them "French plums" rather than prunes and treat them as a dessert fruit. Stewing them in a sugar syrup laced with port and lemon belongs to the tradition of the cold fruit compote served at the end of dinner when fresh fruit was out of season, and the book places it in a run of plum preparations aimed at that gap in the winter table. Port was a common household fortified wine of the period, which helps explain its appearance in so many Victorian fruit syrups.