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Wild Plum Butter
Cook plums tender in very little water. Press through colander. Then add twice as much sugar as pulp and cook 8 minutes.
Three sentences of instruction that assume a cook already knows what fruit butter should look like. The two things worth pinning down are the sugar ratio and what eight minutes can and cannot accomplish.
- The sugar ratio is extremeTwice as much sugar as pulp is far heavier than modern fruit butters, which run roughly half to three-quarters sugar by weight at most. Whether the original means twice by volume or by weight is not stated; either way the result is closer to a stiff preserve than a spreadable butter.
- Wild plums are not market plumsAmerican wild plums (Prunus americana and relatives) are small, thick-skinned and sharply acidic, with a high natural pectin content in skin and core. That acid and pectin are what let so much sugar set at all. Italian or black plums from a supermarket are sweeter and softer and will need less sugar and longer cooking.
- "Very little water"Enough to keep the fruit from catching before its own juice runs, usually a few tablespoons for a couple of pounds. Cook covered over low heat until the skins split and the flesh slumps, about 10 to 20 minutes depending on ripeness.
- Press through a colanderDepending on the size of its perforations, a colander may not hold back all the wild plum skins. A food mill or a fine sieve and a wooden spoon are surer; work the pulp through in batches and discard the stones and skin scraps left behind.
- Eight minutes needs constant attentionAt this sugar concentration the mixture scorches quickly and spits. Stir without stopping in a wide, heavy pan, which also gives the evaporation the short time allows. Eight minutes will thicken the mixture but will not give the dark, long-cooked character of an oven-baked apple butter.
- Judging the setThe original offers no test. A spoonful chilled on a cold plate should mound rather than run; on a thermometer, 220F at sea level is the usual gel point.
- Yield and keepingNo sealing or processing method is given here, so treat it as a refrigerator preserve and use it within a few weeks; if you want shelf-stable jars, follow a current tested water-bath procedure for its times and headspace.
Wild plum thickets were one of the most reliable fruit sources on the prairies and along river bottoms across the central United States, ripening in late summer in quantities no household could eat fresh. Boiling the pulp down with sugar was the standard answer, and fruit butters like this one need no special equipment beyond a pot and a sieve. Wild plums were gathered, dried and pounded by many Plains and Woodlands peoples long before sugar-heavy preserving arrived, but the method printed here, with its sugar ratio and timed boil, belongs to settler preserving practice.