Plums were plentiful in our area of north western Oklahoma when I was a young girl. Most of the plum thickets were found in pastures and along the roadsides. One could find several varieties. I have seen them as large as a quarter and as small as a dime. Some were very sweet and others were hard and tangy. Any variety of plums made great jelly and butter though. The moisture we got from rain was one factor for the size of the plums. We also had to fight the webworms that came early and formed a web on the branches waiting until the plums were large enough to enter. How sad it was, to see a thicket loaded with luscious plums and find them full of wormholes. The worms were usually found embedded inside of the seed. Plum bushes have thorns that can really tear up an arm if you do not wear a long sleeved shirt. Plums ripen during the hottest time of the year. Seemingly, gnats mosquitoes, and chiggers go along with plum picking as well as an occasional snake. Mama and daddy usually sorted the riper plums from those that were more green right in the pasture. They carried milk buckets to put them in and then poured them into bushel baskets. When they brought them home, they sorted them again and laid them all out in shallow boxes to finish ripening. Sometimes they sold some of them to those who did not want to pick them for themselves. It was nothing for mama to “put up” several bushel of plums each year. After the plums were ripe enough to can, we washed them in a big galvanized washtub, Most of the time we worked outside. The plums were washed and leaves and stems picked off. Then, just enough water was put in the pot to barely cover the plums and cooked. The juice was strained into a vessel and set aside for the jelly. Half ripe plums have a lot of natural pectin in them so it is not necessary to add pectin to the juice. The pulp is what the butter is made from. That is the hardest job of all. Some use a food ricer and others use a device with a handle that turns around and smashes the pulp out. The pulp is then made into butter or jam as called by some. Mama added spices, mostly cinnamon, to enhance the flavor. One tends to forget the hard labor of picking and processing the plums by midwinter, when it seems to taste the best of all. |
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Created December 19, 2020
Updated: 14 June, 2021
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