At the CSA this week I got about five quarts of plums – plump purple and little yellow. What to do with so many plums? I decided a little experimentation was in order.

First I thought, why not make a plum pudding? It sounded traditional, yet I couldn’t find just the right recipe. So I came up with my own! Using nutmilk, a recipe which I’ve written about before, vanilla extract and arrowroot as a thickener, I came up with this super simple and delicious recipe:

Plum Pudding

2 1/4 cup brazil nut milk (recipe here)
3/4 cup sugar or other sweetener
3 T arrowroot powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt (if you didn’t add any to the nutmilk)
5 plums, cored and chopped

Combine the sugar, 2 cups of the nut milk and the salt to a pan and heat just until it gets hot, but not boiling. Add the arrowroot powder and stir until it begins to thicken (about fifteen minutes, will thicken more upon setting) add the chopped plums and vanilla, stir for a few minutes. Place in containers in the fridge to set for 30 minutes to one hour. Garnish and serve!

I talked to my mother yesterday while I was making this jam recipe, and she got really excited when I told her what I was doing. “You’re making sand plum jelly?” She asked. They aren’t exactly sand plums, which grow in the loamy soils of Kansas and Oklahoma, and are a wild food. but they are reminiscent, with those rosy yellow peels. If I were in Oklahoma, now would be the time to go hunting for sand plums. I’ve been doing a lot of family research, including asking for my mother and aunt’s memories around food growing up. Sand plum jelly was one of those essential seasonal experiences, something country folk just did. It made me happy that my mom got so excited, so I consider this an ode.

Spirit of Sand Plum Preserves

2-3 quarts yellow plums (or wild sand plums), cored and chopped
1/2 – 1 cup sugar (depends on your love of tartness)
5 T agar flakes

Combine the chopped plums and sugar in a pan and heat for ten minutes, until fruit breaks down. Add the agar and stir it in, cooking for an additional 10 minutes. Fill a jar (sterilized in boiling water) and seal.

Finally, as a part of a project my friend Frances is involved in in Bristol, England, I will be bringing awareness to local food systems by eating locally for one week in September for Eat the Change. I’ve been working on getting local grains (supposedly there is a baker at the Friday Union Square market who sells locally grown and produced loaves), salt and oil. (Salt from the Atlantic? walnut oil?) Melanie, my co-conspirator in Philadelphia, planted the seed in my head to make my own vinegar. I consulted the book Wild Fermentation, which happens to have multiple vinegar recipes. I thought I’d give one a try using farmer’s market honey instead of sugar.

Plum Vinegar

1/4 cup local honey
3 plums
1 liter water

This is a five week or longer process. First, mix the honey with equal parts of the water to increase viscosity. Chop two or three plums, and place them inside your jar. Add the honey water along with the rest of the water to the jar and cover with cheese cloth. After the first week, strain out the plums, then continue the ferment for four more weeks. This is an experiment for me, I’m not yet sure if it will turn out. But I had to get started now, because September will be here before I even realize.