Wild Plum Jelly

   

     Right now, at this very moment, wild plums are ripening and dropping to the ground. The trees grow wild in fields and fence rows, small trees only 15 feet high with most much shorter, stunted and twisted by nature like a stooped Granny with gnarled joints.

     Wild fruits are a near certainty. They were created to sustain themselves and so most bloom after the last hard frosts, look drought grimly in the eye, and weather birds and bugs with a patience born of antiquity. Since wild plants almost always come to fruit, year after year, the real trick is finding out when. It can vary by as much as a month from one season to the next according to rain, heat, cold.....So if you don't watch you will miss them. 
    Wild plums follow suit with most wild things in that they don't taste too good 'til they are cooked. The quarter sized orbs are so beautiful, looking deceptively like coral-red cherries just begging to be eaten. When you find the first ones ripe it is tradition that you must taste one. Just pick one and stick your front teeth in to taste it, don't take a bite. If it's bitter then you won't want to try another. Look for one that is ruby-dark. If you taste sweetness then stick it in your mouth and suck the pulp off the seed. Don't chew the skin- mercy! The astringency makes your mouth want to turn inside out. Then just spit out seed and skin. But this juice makes one of the most glorious jellies on God's green earth - mine and my middle son's favorite.

    Like other fruits, these ripen in their own good time and so you must pick them in succession. I grab the ends of the branches and give a good whipping shake to throw down all that are ripe enough to fall; they patter and bounce and fall on your head and anyone's head who is helping you and for some reason that makes me laugh maniacally. Mainly what you will be picking up is windfalls anyway. Like I have said about other fruits, this is not a beauty contest. It is okay if they have a bug bite, are shriveled, are half yellow, etc. They are going to be juice. Just don't pick up ones that are mushy to the touch. A good plum is firm. Throw these in the freezer in a grocery sack and go back every couple of days to do it all again.

Wild plums make a lot of juice, but once you try it you will want a lot. Unlike most other juices, wild plum is very opaque, almost milky. 

    This is the recipe for the jelly. Look at my instructions for elderberry jelly, or check out a website like Ball or Sure-Jell.

Wild Plum Jelly
5 1/2 cups juice
1/2 tsp butter
1 box Sure-Jell
6 1/2 cups sugar

    Try this on homemade oat bread, or a hot buttered biscuit for something so fine that it will make your eyes close against your will. Wait. Are you telling me that you make Whomp'em biscuits?! You know, the kind in a can where you "whomp" em against the counter to open them. I hate to tell you this, sugar, but all the jellies in the world just aren't gonna taste as good on a can biscuit.                 Biscuits are super easy, take just a handful of ingredients, you can dress them up with all kinds of flavors, and.....oh, my! Biscuits with a sliver of ham tucked inside, or biscuit and fresh honey-butter with fried chicken. Now I'm on a totally different track than making jelly. I promise I will show you the joys of biscuit making real soon now. Until then wild plum jelly on Whomp'em biscuits is just fine:)

"...I intend to marry Agatha myself. She may be a thousand years old, but she makes an incomparable jam tart. Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal."

~ Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel