The plum pay-off

Our neighbors across the street, the ones who mainly live in Blois but spend weekends and summers down here in the country near Saint-Aignan, have always been generous about sharing their fruit harvest with us. One year they told us to go pick peaches on their property, and we came home with more than 20 lbs. of them. Another year it was quinces. Each time we made jam (or jelly).

And then there are the plums. They have several kinds, but the ones I like the best for making tarts, clafoutis, or jam are the little red ones. They ripen early — in July, not late August or in September — so they don't get lost in the fruit shuffle at the end of summer. I liked these little red plums so much that a few years ago I planted some pits saved from them and grew my own plum tree.

The shinier plums in the foreground came off the tree in our yard. These little plums are about the size of large cherries.
Plums, by the way, are prunes in French, and prunes are pruneaux.

The new tree turned out to be very different from the neighbors', but this year it is bearing similar fruit. I think its plums are a little more sour. They turn red a lot earlier than the originals. The tree is prettier, because its leaves are red, not green like the parent plant's. All in all, I'm happy with it. And I'm even happier when, as was the case yesterday, I can go over to the neighbors' and pick (gather, mostly, the ones on the ground) a quart or two of the sweet little plums in their yard as well as a few from ours.

Now the question is: a tart, a clafoutis, or jam? Probably not jam right now, because we have company coming and we're going to be busy. A clafoutis, I think. We'll see. Meanwhile, there are a lot more plums on the tree in our yard and they'll need to be picked, because we are expecting rain over the next few days. That might be today's work. Confiture next week — that's a distinct possibility.