Greengage

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Greengage
Owoce Renkloda.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Rosales
Family: Rosaceae
Genus: Prunus
Subgenus:
Prunus
Species:
Subspecies:
P. d. italica
Trinomial name
Prunus domestica italica
(Borkh.) Gams ex Hegi
Synonyms [1]

Prunus italicaBorkh.

The greengages are a group of cultivars of the common Middle Eastern plum. The first true greengage came from a green-fruited wild plum which originated in Turkey Greengages are grown in temperate areas and are known for the rich, confectionery flavour. They are considered to be among the finest dessert plums; Anna Pavord calls them "most ambrosial of all tree fruit" [2] and David Karp describes them as "the best fruit in the world". [3]

Contents

The Oxford English Dictionary regards "gage" and "greengage" as synonyms. [4] However, not all gages are green, and some horticulturists make a distinction between the two words, with greengages as a variety of the gages, scientifically named Prunus domestica (subsp. italica var. claudiana.) [5] [6] The gages otherwise include the large and usually purple to blackish but occasionally bright yellow round plums as well as the ancient and little-known Austrian varieties Punze (var. rotunda) and Weinkriech (var. vinaria).

Description

Greengage fruit are identified by their round-oval shape and smooth-textured, pale green flesh; they are on average smaller than round plums but larger than mirabelle plums (usually between 2 and 4 cm diameter). The skin ranges in colour from green to yellowish, with a pale blue "blush" in some cultivars; a few Reine Claudes, such as 'Graf Althanns', are reddish-purple due to crossbreeding with other plums.

History and etymology

Greengage fruit originated in the Middle East. [6] Though "Green Gages" were previously thought to have been first imported into England from France in 1724 by Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet, [7] a greengage seed was found embedded[ clarification needed ] in a 15th-century building in Hereford. [8] Supposedly, the labels identifying the French plum trees were lost in transit to Gage's home at Hengrave Hall, near Bury St Edmunds. [9] More recent research indicates that it was a cousin and namesake Sir William Gage, 2nd Baronet of Hengrave who was responsible for introducing the greengage to England. [10] Soon after, greengages were cultivated in the American colonies, even being grown on the plantations of American presidents George Washington (1732–1799) and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). However, their cultivation in North America has declined significantly since the 18th century.

The name Reine Claude (French for "Queen Claude"), by which they are known in France, is in honour of the French queen Claude (1499–1524), Duchess of Brittany. A greengage is also called la bonne reine (French for "the good Queen") in France. [11]

Cultivation

Freshly harvested Reine Claude Verte Greengages.jpg
Freshly harvested Reine Claude Verte

Greengages are widely grown in particular in western Europe. The core of their range extends from France to southern England. In Germany, where they are called Reneklode or Ringlotte, numerous cultivars have been developed too. In Czechia, they are known as ringle, in Poland as renklody, in Hungary as ringló, [12] in Slovakia as ringloty, in Slovenia as ringlo, and in Portugal as Raínha Cláudia. They are widely grown, typically for eating out of hand or stewing in syrup to make a compote. In Portugal, however, they make up a delicacy invented by Dominican nuns in the 16th or 17th century (when confined to their convents) in the town of Elvas, where they are boiled in a sugary syrup several times, over the course of several weeks, to then be preserved whole in syrup or dried, coated in sugar and eaten either with a local dessert, sericaia, made from eggs, sugar, milk, cinnamon and flour or eaten with rich cheeses.

Prunus domestica subsp. italica flowers Prunus domestica italica flowers.jpg
Prunus domestica subsp. italica flowers

At least the green cultivars breed more or less true from seed. Several similar cultivars produced from seedlings are now available; some of these include other plum cultivars in their parentage. Widely grown cultivars include:

Culture

The fruit has inspired a film, The Greengage Summer (called The Loss of Innocence in the USA) which is a 1961 British drama film set in France. It was based on the novel The Greengage Summer (1958) by Rumer Godden.

One Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch involved a deranged self-defence instructor (played by John Cleese) whose main hypothetical enemy was fresh fruit. When trying to get him to focus on more menacing foes, his exasperated students began ticking off the fruits they had already bravely battled, including 'greengages, lemons, plums, and mangoes in syrup!'

More recently, the tree features in the novel The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree (2017) by Iranian-Australian author Shokoofeh Azar.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peach</span> Type of fruit tree, or its fruit

The peach is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others, nectarines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plum</span> Edible fruit

A plum is a fruit of some species in Prunus subg. Prunus. Dried plums are most often called prunes, though in the United States they may be labeled as simply 'dried plums', especially during the 21st century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prune</span> Dried plum

A prune is a dried plum, most commonly from the European plum tree. Not all plum species or varieties can be dried into prunes. A prune is the firm-fleshed fruit (plum) of Prunus domestica varieties that have a high soluble solids content, and do not ferment during drying. Use of the term "prune" for fresh plums is obsolete except when applied to varieties of plum grown for drying.

<i>Prunus</i> Genus of trees and shrubs

Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs in the flowering plant family Rosaceae that includes plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, being native to the North American temperate regions, the neotropics of South America, and temperate and tropical regions of Asia and Africa, There are 340 accepted species. Many members of the genus are widely cultivated for their fruit and for decorative purposes. Prunus fruit are drupes, or stone fruits. The fleshy mesocarp surrounding the endocarp is edible while the endocarp itself forms a hard, inedible shell called the pyrena. This shell encloses the seed, which is edible in some species, but poisonous in many others. Besides being eaten off the hand, most Prunus fruit are also commonly used in processing, such as jam production, canning, drying, and the seeds for roasting.

<i>Prunus cerasus</i> Species of tree

Prunus cerasus is a species of Prunus in the subgenus Cerasus (cherries), native to much of Europe, North Africa and West Asia. It is closely related to the sweet cherry, but has a fruit that is more acidic. Its sour pulp is edible.

<i>Prunus mume</i> East Asian tree species

Prunus mume is a Chinese tree species classified in the Armeniaca section of the genus Prunus subgenus Prunus. Its common names include Chinese plum,Japanese plum, and Japanese apricot. The flower, long a beloved subject in the traditional painting and poetry of Sinospheric countries, is usually called plum blossom. This distinct tree species is related to both the plum and apricot trees. Although generally referred to as a plum in English, it is more closely related to the apricot. In East Asian cuisine, the fruit of the tree is used in juices, as a flavouring for alcohol, as a pickle, and in sauces. It is also used in traditional medicine.

<i>Populus nigra</i> Species of plant

Populus nigra, the black poplar, is a species of cottonwood poplar, the type species of section Aigeiros of the genus Populus, native to Europe, southwest and central Asia, and northwest Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Damson</span> Edible fruit

The damson or damson plum, also archaically called the "damascene", is an edible drupaceous fruit, a subspecies of the plum tree. Varieties of insititia are found across Europe, but the name damson is derived from and most commonly applied to forms that are native to Great Britain. Damsons are relatively small ovoid plum-like fruit with a distinctive, somewhat astringent taste, and are widely used for culinary purposes, particularly in fruit preserves and jams.

<i>Prunus cerasifera</i> Species of plum

Prunus cerasifera is a species of plum known by the common names cherry plum and myrobalan plum. It is native to Southeast Europe and Western Asia, and is naturalised in the British Isles and scattered locations in North America. Also naturalized in parts of SE Australia where it is considered to be a mildly invasive weed of bushland near urban centers. P. cerasifera is believed to one of the parents of the Cultivated Plum, Prunus domestica perhaps crossing with the sloe, Prunus spinosa, or perhaps the sole parent. This would make it a parent of most of the commercial varieties of plum in the UK and mainland Europe - Victoria, greengages, bullace etc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mirabelle plum</span> Subspecies of plum

Mirabelle plum is a cultivar group of plum trees of the genus Prunus. It is believed that the plum was cultivated from a wild fruit grown in Anatolia.

<i>Prunus serrulata</i> Species of tree

Prunus serrulata or Japanese cherry is a species of cherry tree that grows naturally in Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam, and it also refers to a cultivar produced from Prunus speciosa, a cherry tree endemic in Japan. Historically, the Japanese have developed many cultivars by selective breeding of cherry trees, which are produced by the complicated crossing of several wild species, and they are used for ornamental purposes all over the world. Of these, the cultivars produced by complex interspecific hybrids based on the Oshima cherry are also known as the Cerasus Sato-zakura Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firle</span> Village in East Sussex, England

Firle is a village and civil parish in the Lewes district of East Sussex, England. Firle refers to an old-English/Anglo-Saxon word fierol meaning overgrown with oak. Although the original division of East Firle and West Firle still remains, East Firle is now simply confined to the houses of Heighton Street, which lie to the east of the Firle Park. West Firle is now generally referred to as Firle although West Firle remains its official name. It is located south of the A27 road four miles (9 km) east of Lewes.

<i>Prunus salicina</i> Species of tree

Prunus salicina, commonly called the Japanese plum or Chinese plum, is a small deciduous tree native to China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. It is an introduced species in Korea, Japan, Israel, the United States, and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bullace</span> Variety of plum

The bullace is a variety of plum. It bears edible fruit similar to those of the damson, and like the damson is considered to be a strain of the insititia subspecies of Prunus domestica. Although the term has regionally been applied to several different kinds of "wild plum" found in the United Kingdom, it is usually taken to refer to varieties with a spherical shape, as opposed to the oval damsons.

<i>Prunus maritima</i> Species of tree

Prunus maritima, the beach plum, is a species of plum native to the East Coast of the United States. It is a choice wild edible and its few pests and salt tolerance make it a resilient fruit crop for degraded lands and urban soils.

<i>Prunus tomentosa</i> Species of tree

Prunus tomentosa is a species of Prunus native to northern and western China, Korea, Mongolia, and possibly northern India. Common names for Prunus tomentosa include Nanjing cherry, Korean cherry, Manchu cherry, downy cherry, Shanghai cherry, Ando cherry, mountain cherry, Chinese bush cherry, and Chinese dwarf cherry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crop wild relative</span> Wild plant closely related to a domesticated plant

A crop wild relative (CWR) is a wild plant closely related to a domesticated plant. It may be a wild ancestor of the domesticated (cultivated) plant or another closely related taxon.

<i>Prunus domestica</i> Species of flowering plant

Prunus domestica is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae. A deciduous tree, it includes many varieties of the fruit trees known as plums in English, though not all plums belong to this species. The greengages and damsons also belong to subspecies of P. domestica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perdrigon</span> Culinary plum

The perdrigon, occasionally spelt "perdigon", is an old variety of culinary plum originating in the south of France. It is sometimes classified as a variety of Prunus domestica subsp. insititia, like the British damson and German krieche, though it has significant differences from both. It was once classed as Prunus pertigona or Prunus domestica pertigona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prune plum</span> Subspecies of edible fruit

The prune plum is a fruit-bearing tree, or its fruit. It is a subspecies of the plum Prunus domestica. The freestone fruit is similar to, but distinct from, the clingstone damson and is especially popular in Central Europe.

References

  1. "Prunus domestica subsp. italica". Germplasm Resources Information Network . Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture . Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  2. Anna Pavord, "Plum job: A juicy guide to greengages and plums" Independent (12 August 2011).
  3. David Karp, “"A Finicky Fruit Is Sweet When Coddled",” New York Times (1 Sept. 2004).
  4. Shorter Oxford English dictionary, 6th ed. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. 2007. p. 3804. ISBN   978-0199206872.
  5. Melinda Smale (Editor) Valuing Crop Biodiversity: On-farm Genetic Resources and Economic Change , p. 130, at Google Books
  6. 1 2 Andrew F. Smith Food and Drink in American History: A "Full Course" Encyclopedia (3 Volumes, 2013) , p. 681, at Google Books
  7. Howse, Christopher. "The gooseberry is always greener". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 26 October 2011. Retrieved 16 July 2009.
  8. Hensich, Bridget Ann. Fast and Feast. Penn State Press. p. 115.
  9. (Chambers's 20th Century Dictionary, 1903).
  10. "The Curse of the Greengage". February 22, 2016.
  11. "Greengage" at Bartleby.com which provides the text from Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898). Accessed 22 January 2007.
  12. "Hungarian-English dictionary". szotar.sztaki.hu. Retrieved 24 May 2023.