In France prunes that do not come from the area around Agen are considered inferior (to the point of not worth buying). The real thing is called a pruneau d'Agen in French. The word 'prune' in French simply means fresh plum.
Sweet, low in calories and good for your health, the Agen prune is a cult product from the Lot-et-Garonne. About 900 growers produce more than 38 000 tonnes of certified IGP Pruneaux d'Agen annually in France, and this year's harvest begun in mid August, a little early.
Only the Ente variety of plum can be turned into Agen prunes, known as the 'black pearl' of Lot-et-Garonne. They can be eaten coated in chocolate, soaked in Armagnac or just plain, every day for breakfast. A prune a day keeps the doctor away according to the producers.
This year the prunes will be good. The plums haven't suffered from the heat or the drought. With the sun the fruit is packed with sugar. The more sugar the better the quality of the prune.
France is the third biggest producers of prunes in the world, with 400 000 tonnes of plums harvested annually. The plums are sorted according to their sugar levels, then laid out in ovens at 80C.
1 comment:
The old French verb enter means to graft (greffer).
Prune d’Ente means it is a fruit from a grafted tree. I don’t know if the actual trees are grafted, but their ancestors were. If new trees are grown from seed, I guess they need to be grafted or entés to keep the quality.
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