Pluot (Plum-Apricot hybrid)

Hi,

I ran around visiting my fruit and vegetable friends this weekend. One of my friends gifted me with nearly a bushel of over-ripe pluots. He said if anybody can make something out these, I can.

I will be making jam and conserves. I am considering freezing pulp to make ice cream and possibly a pie filling.

Do you have any ideas or recipes which I should consider?

Thanks in advance.
Regards,

I would definitely dry a few of them. I'm sure that minced dried pluot would be a great addition to salads or cereals.

Best,
EC

Cathy!

My favorite recipe lately is in Bon Appetit August issue, for plum cobbler with cinnamon biscuits. If your pluots aren't too over ripe, this should work well.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recip ... ews/109806

Let us know what you try and how it turns out!

From the July/August Health mag:

Wacky botanist Floyd Zaiger, the 79 year old guy who created the pluot (a plum aprocit combo), has struck again. This summer Californians can taste his next big fruit - the peacotum (rhymes with bottom). This peach-apricot-plum hybrid tool Zaiger 30 years - and lots of hand pollination - to perfect. Peacotums, which may be available nationwide next year, are the size of a plum, sweet, with the flavors of all 3 fruits, and slightly fuzzy. Napkins are required; Zaiger made the things juicy.

Christine

Why do people like these things? They are marketing shills.

I like the flavor. I am not a plum fan, but I like pluots. I think it is because usually plum skins are too tart and chewy, but the pluot skins are not tart nor are they chewy. They also seem to have a longer season than apricots.

One more fruit option seems good to me!

leek wrote:One more fruit option seems good to me!

Right On!!

E.M.

Cathy,

I'm thinking chutney, fruit roll-ups for the kids, anything with duck or pork, pluot butter, and/or sorbet.

trixie-pea

we should also remember the wonderous grapefruit is a product of "marketing shill"

The grapefruit has been around for about 300 years, although stories of its origins vary.

I like apricots, I like plums, I don't particularly think pluots are an improvement on either, but I accept that some people might prefer them.

But I draw the line at those weird peaches without pits. :twisted:

annieb wrote:But I draw the line at those weird peaches without pits.

what about seedless watermelons?? :-p

a caveat: i'm not convinced that plupicots add anything to the selection either, but i guess since they are all Prunus ssp that it really isnt a whole lot different than "bing" cherries or "gala" apples or any other of the named, grafted varieties. it's an abomination created by humanity anyway, why not make it more delicious??

i've had so called "hierloom" apricots, prunus mume and i would rather eat a named variety apricot any day of the week. same thing with wild type cherries, peaches, apples, etc. the named varieties cultivated by mankind are just tastier.

The late great Henry Mitchell, long-time garden writer for the Washington Post (and called by Allen Lacy "the funniest and most truthful garden writer") wrote a brilliant essay on watermelons decrying the modern trend towards smaller and, oh horrors, seedless. It's been years since I read it, but the general idea is that watermelons that are bred to be bigger taste better, that watermelons weren't really meant to fit in a fridge, but rather to be placed in tubs of ice and eaten on really hot days, like they had in Texas where HM grew up, and DC, where he lived his adult life.

The best watermelon I can remember eating was big--big enough for 6 adults and nine kids. It wasn't iced in a tub, but rather in an ice cold spring near Culpepper, VA. It was hot and that watermelon was damn good.

Kind of makes those little spheres seem, well, puny in more ways than one.

Correction: It was Allen Lacy (no mean garden writer himself) who wrote about Texas boyhood and watermelon (essay is in his book Home Ground), but in a way that reminded me of Henry Mitchell.

One thing he mentions in this wonderful essay ("Weighty Matters") is that watermelons picked unripe and shipped a long way tend to taste of cucumber, and not even a little salt will help them. Can't really argue with those truths.

A bit off topic, but the bannanas we eat today are seedless. Those little black specks are vestiges of the seeds, rather than seeds.


pd

When I lived in Brasil, banana names were hyphenated by the fruit whose flavor they recalled, as in banana-orange, banana-fig, banana-apples.

The seeds were more prominent, but not obtrusive. Also bananas were eaten at a much more advanced state of ripeness, and I was regularly questioned as to why Americans ate unripe bananas (among other
things:-)

Currently reading this book: Bananas


I will be able to discuss more after this weekend

pd

That is very interesting about the bananas...

I am fascinated by the 3 sections in a banana that I never knew about until a few years ago!!

I love my bananas just past green, nice firm, good banana flavor. I really dislike them once there is a hint of brown on the skin. Who knew this was not banana ripeness?

I would love to hear more!

Christine

Spotted at the Dominick's today:

grapple--"looks like an apple, tastes like a grape."

Pronounced like grape-le, apparently.

Why Because when some people are eating grapes, they are thinking to themselves, gee this tastes good, but it's too darn soft and juicy, I'd like it a lot better if it was crisp......like an apple Or maybe when some people are eating apples, they think, gee, I like being able to hold this in one hand and take a big bite, I could probably ride a bike while eating this, which I can't do when I eat grapes, but I think grapes taste better

Stop the insanity

Plus, they were a really unappetizing shade of almost lilac over light green.

annieb wrote:Spotted at the Dominick's today:

grapple--"looks like an apple, tastes like a grape."

Pronounced like grape-le, apparently.

I had to drag beth away from those a few weeks ago.

I think they're meant for kids who don't like the taste of apples..

Then why not let them eat grapes :roll:

I don't mind the pluot so much, though I admit to not really seeing the need for it.

In Dallas a couple months ago, at Central Market, I was picking up some goods haphazardly, and I admit to being intrigued by the grapple. I got a four-pack with some cheese and crackers, because in a fog I suppose, and despite looking, I failed to see the very obvious part of the package where it explains the apples simply have grape flavor added. These aren't hybrids. They're terrible, too.

I was doing some shopping at Marketplace on Oakton today and I was pleased to see about 6 different varieties of pluot on sale for $1.49/lb. I'll be doing a tasting tomorrow.

Marketplace on Oakton
4817 W Oakton
Skokie, IL 60077

Best,
Michael

I need to get myself to better(?) groceries I guess, as I've never heard of pluots (sounds like some radioactive subatomic particle to me) or grapples until today. When will the silliness end? I have had that crazy pear-apple hybrid. Worst of both worlds.

annieb wrote:Then why not let them eat grapes

Because grapples taste like purple, not like grapes (You know, purple candy/kool-aid flavor?). And god forbid children should eat ANYTHING that doesn't taste like candy.

Topic?? uhhh...I got nothin'.

I made some pluot ice cream during the summer. Not shabby, but I preferred peaches as my stone fruit of choice for ice cream. The fruits by themselves were excellent, though, sweet and juicy. Perhaps a sorbet may have been called for rather than an ice cream, but now I'm afraid the season has passed. [sigh]

publicblast wrote:Perhaps a sorbet may have been called for rather than an ice cream, but now I'm afraid the season has passed. [sigh]

I definitely think that the tanginess of a plum or a pluot is more suited to a granita or a sorbet than an ice cream, but I say this having never had plum or pluot ice cream. Sounds interesting. I don't think the season has passed. There's still a lot of great fruit out there.

Best,
Michael

OK, another entry in the "stupid fruit" category. At Trader Joe's, a Florida avocado labeled a "Slim-cado" and touted as having 35% less fat or calories or something.

Now I know it's considered de rigeur by many to denounce the thin-skinned Florida avocado in favor of the Haas variety, and for guacamole, etc. I agree Hass is preferred.

But these are really simply two different creatures. In Brasil I learned to eat the large Florida type avocado cut in half around the equator, with the cavity filled (to taste, which ranged from a teaspoon or so to a heaping mount overflowing the cavity) with sugar, limao (the Brasilian lemon is closer to a lime in flavor, but both yellow and green fruits are called limao) squeezed over all, then chopped and mixed with a spoon.

This was dessert. And a very nice dessert it was.

I might have purchased one, except that almost all of the limited amount of produce I've ever purchased at TJ's has, simply, sucked.[/i]

annieb wrote:OK, another entry in the "stupid fruit" category. At Trader Joe's, a Florida avocado labeled a "Slim-cado" and touted as having 35% less fat or calories or something.

I might have purchased one, except that almost all of the limited amount of produce I've ever purchased at TJ's has, simply, sucked.[/i]

Interesting, this hostility towards new or hybrid produce. Pluots are okay, but the one variety I have tried did not add much for me, so I look forward to the report, EC. I tend to be a juicy, ripe, peach, and sweet berry guy in mid-summer, but I do not agree that creating new hybrids is craziness or stupid. Almost everything we grow as food has been selected and manipulated to some degree to maximize the characteristics we enjoy, so I do not exactly understand why it is crazy or stupid to continue doing that.

I also like Pear-Apples (and aren't they a fairly old Japanese fruit anyway?) and Brocoflower. And over a thousand years of selective breeding and hybridization has created some very interesting grape varieties that can make me quite happy .

I guess I forgot to add the X 75

My main point was that it's stupid to call something a slim-cado and try to entice people to eat it because it has 35% less of something else, when they might use in in, say, a guacamole and then walk away thinking it's just a bad avocado. It's not a bad avocado, it's a different variety that has other, better uses.

Now the grapple, I still maintain that's stupid

sweetsalty wrote:

annieb wrote:Then why not let them eat grapes

Because grapples taste like purple, not like grapes (You know, purple candy/kool-aid flavor?). And god forbid children should eat ANYTHING that doesn't taste like candy.

Topic?? uhhh...I got nothin'.

I thought you were joking, but apparently [ul="http://www.grapplefruits.com/MakingGrapples.cfm"]Grapples are made[/url] to taste like purple. They're not a hybrid at all (I was wondering how in the heck that would work, anyway.)

As for pear-apples, I guess those aren't multi-fruit hybrids either. They seem to be the name for one of ten possible varieties of Asian pear, although I can't be definitive about that. There might be genuine pear-apple hybrids out there. My problem with the pear-apple is that is has the texture of an apple, but with a very-watered down taste of pear. At least the ones I've had. I love apples and pears separetely, and the pear-apple seems to have none of what I love about both these fruits.