Prugna, Susina

Domestic plums appear to have their origins far back in prehistory as a cross between sloes, P spinosa, and cherry plums, P cerasifera, a marriage which most probably took place in the Caucasus, where in forests both species abound. (See under Roach in the Bibliography.)

But damsons belong to a distinct species, P istititia, the bullace in its wild form. Damson plums were cultivated well before the Christian era in Damascus and are the ancestors of the French mirabelle, P damascena. A descendant of this tree is growing in our masseria; it makes an astonishingly delicious and perfumed jam. Its small blue plums are disregarded by our neighbours ‘because their flesh is attached to the stone’. A Gascon confronted with this jam is reminded of French plums of bygone days. I imagine that the Crusaders, returning via Otranto and Brindisi from the Holy Land, stuffed their pockets with dried Damascus plums, discarding the stones en route. (The octagonal Crusader churches still stand in Ugento and Tricase.) Prunes stem from the same stock, by cultivation increasing in size.