Title: Greengage Plums with Custard
Categories: Fruit Dessert
Yield: 1 Servings

		Greengage plums
		White wine
		Sugar
		Vanilla
		Vanilla custard

Saturday 15 August 1998 Electronic Telegraph/London Telegraph

August is the juiciest month, says Rowley Leigh, for that's when the greengage, queen of plums, arrives at our tables

THERE are compensations to being stuck in London in August while others suffer midges in the Western Isles, or queue for deckchairs on beaches, or endure the joys of self-catering. The city is an oasis of calm. There is no traffic, there are prom concerts, every restaurant has a free table, the first grouse will soon be with us - and there are plums. Not just any plums, mind, but greengages. When the travellers return, so will the traffic, and the greengages will have been replaced by the Victoria plum.

True, those who have spent the month at a gite in France will have had plenty of opportunity to gorge themselves on greengages and the even more wondrous mirabelles. These little gold-and-red speckled beauties burst with sweetness on market stalls throughout France in August, whereas here they have to be sought out. A sense of Schadenfreude can happily be restored by the knowledge that the gite will have no scales, no rolling-pin, no tart rings and certainly no electric mixer ~ so a tarte aux Reines Claudes will be beyond its scope.

"Reine Claude" sounds so pretty, yet the queen who lent her name to the little green plum was a sorry spectacle, born with a congenital limp and a glandular malfunction that made her appallingly obese. I do not suppose Sir William Gage, who imported the fruit to Suffolk in 1725, was a much more prepossessing figure, but his name was applied to a whole group of plums. By the 19th century almost any plum held to be superior to the common red and blue varieties was called a "gage".

If the greengage has won the battle for critical esteem, the Victoria has had the last laugh, since it now completely dominates plum production on this side of the Channel. There isn't a lot wrong with the Victoria plum but there's not a lot right with it either. It crops bounteously, like a Royal Sovereign strawberry or a Moneymaker tomato, but like those similarly ubiquitous varieties it does not have a great deal of taste. It certainly does not possess the sweet and luscious flavour of its smaller rival. It cooks well, and, given a little help with sugar and spice, can produce good results.

The sweetest plums, such as greengages and mirabelles, are delicious even when eaten raw. Baked in a tart with almond cream they are sensational. If your pastry hands are on strike or you are stuck in that gite, these plums are ambrosial when poached for a few moments in a syrup of white wine and sugar infused with vanilla, chilled and then served with a proper vanilla custard. Tinker tailor soldier sailor was never this good at school.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Kensington Place, 201-205 Kensington Church Street, London W8 (0171-727 3184)

MM format by Manny Rothstein, 8/27/98.

From: Manny Rothstein Date: 09-08-98 (07:12) The Once And Future Legend (1) Cooking

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