Not socks or hankies - prunes, please!

A recipe for Drunken prunes

I don’t want to alarm you, but as of 10 November, there are only 45 days before friends and relations will be unwrapping your Christmas presents. I only mention it because if you haven’t saved up to buy all your beloveds a vachement drôle Deux Cheveaux,

a charmant chateau, 

or mature vignoble,  

(you might guess I’m fresh from Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch…) you need to get the production of one variety of far more affordable French present under way right now. The food variety.

Franchement, these are the sort of gifts that would be more comfortably received than those just listed, since no-one will feel obliged to behave towards you with the obsequious gratitude absurdly expensive presents generally provoke. They will simply be touched you’ve gone to a bit of a cooking effort on their behalf. 

But it can’t wait.

Everyone knows the Périgord (another name for the département of the Dordogne) is associated with foie gras, walnuts and anything duck. But the glossy, fleshy pruneau d’Agen is often left off the list. Perhaps because while Agen like the Dordogne is in the Aquitaine region, it’s actually sited over the Périgord borders in the Lot-et-Garonne.

The French word prune means plum. Pruneau means prune. Never straight forward, those French. Originally grown in China, violet-reddish, thin-skinned prunes were cultivated across the Mediterranean by the Romans, who planted trees in the Narbonne region south of the Aquitaine and the Quercy. Others have it they came to France from Damascus in the 13th century, in the care of pilgrims and crusaders. To deter wasps, monks collected the fruit that had fallen on the ground and found, months later, that they were still edible. 

They began deliberately to dry them, on woven trays that look not unlike snow shoes now beloved of interior designers who probably loathe prunes. The plump fruit were loaded onto the garbarres (flat-bottomed barges) at Agen on the Garonne, and taken down river to Bordeaux for shipping onwards to the rest of the appreciative world. With Bordeaux imposing punitive taxes on the prunes, producers began shipping them directly from Agen. They changed their name along with the port of origin from Pruneaux de Bordeaux to Pruneaux d’Agen.

Prunes from anywhere are filled with flavour, nutrients and vitamins. They are particularly high in vitamin K, good for strong bones and blood clotting. These qualities made prunes a key part of the diet of sailors on long-range voyages who doubtless got battered about a bit. They are also high in fibre - the reason for the bottle of Syrup of Figs in the traditional British bathroom cabinet, even if the European Food Safety Agency has ruled that prunes can’t be sold as a laxative. What do they know. Try eating six in a row and judge for yourselves.

The ones to buy for cooking, or for eating straight from the bag, are the mi-cuit (half-dried) prunes sold in French street markets direct from the grower. But how many of us have access to those? ‘Soft-eating prunes’ and even Prunes d’Agen are not hard to find in any good health food or whole food store. Buy them with the stones still in if you can. Like cooking a roast with a bone in delivers more flavour to the meat, so do the stones to the prunes. Besides, if you don’t already have your own special sweetie, the stones also allow anyone of any sex to organise their romantic future without the need of a dating app or wedding planner. To establish your future partner, wedding and habitation, line them up and recite over each in turn ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor’ for your mate, ‘Silk, Satin, Cotton, Rags’ for your outfit, ‘Coach, Carriage, Wheelbarrow, Cart’ for the transport and ‘Castle, Cottage, Pigsty, Barn’ for future zip code.

There are officially 46 grades of Pruneaux d’Agen in both size and quality. The largest will produce a 500g/1lb package of around 50 prunes. They are not the cheapest variety. Their expense has to do with the 20 to 26-hour long oven-drying process they undergo to reduce their moisture. 1.03kg/2lb3oz of plums only produces 500g/1lb of prunes. Then they are plumped up in steam to partially rehydrate them to a moisture content of 35 percent. 

Whether you’re cooking a Breton clafoutis or just stewing them gently (with a bag of Earl Grey tea to give a slight hint of bergamot), it’s worth paying a bit more to buy the best. Particularly for the recipe below, which you will store in jars and give to your nearest and dearest - or the Christmas visitor or guest who wasn’t on your present list but who brought you a little something. The original recipe calls for Armagnac. But I’d recommend cheap port and saving the Armagnac for a tot to drink while eating the soused prunes.

A quantity of Pruneaux d’Agen or good quality prunes, preferably unstoned - as many as will be covered by your liquor

A bottle of cheapest port

Sterilized lidded jars

Fill the jars three quarters of the way with prunes. Cover them with alcohol. Close them and store in a dark place for at least one month before eating. The longer you leave them, the more delicious.

To serve, plop one or two in a small cordial glass or flute and spoon over a little of the alcohol. If you pass a bowl of whipped cream or creme fraiche, a small teaspoonful on top of the prunes will react with the alcohol and thicken up.

These make an excellent store cupboard staple for impromptu celebrations at any time of year.

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