Visions of Sugar Plums
Oct. 27th, 2010 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodel So...
Everybody in the Christmas-celebrating world has probably heard the line in the poem. And probably has also heard "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," even if they don't recognize it. I admit to a minor obsession with sugar plums. It's a yummy-sounding word, for one, and it combines two very nice things with all kinds of pleasant associations (sugar and plums). Sugar plums sound sweet and sparkly, little gem-like packages of wonderfulness.
I have been tracking down various sweets calling themselves "sugar plums" for years now. And lo, they are many and varied, ranging from this fairly sensible incarnation to chocolate-covered bonbons filled with plum puree (once also hawked by Vermont Country Store).
But nothing beats these. Greengage or "Reine Claude" plums, cooked and soaked in sugar. Still in their skins (and with pits intact) they come nestled in a little wooden box. Basically, they are to fruit what marrons glaces are to nutmeats, and if you don't like marrons glaces, then phooey! These plums-- Elvas Plums is the trade name for them now-- come out of Portugal; Williams-Sonoma was once my supplier but now I have to get 'em from Zingerman's. They sell so fast I had to sign up last year to get notification this year that the plums were in so I could snag mine before supplies ran out.
Anyway, I like these so very much that I featured them in "Homecomings." Some writers plug their favorite bands, or their beloved brand-name clothing... I plug weird food.
Everybody in the Christmas-celebrating world has probably heard the line in the poem. And probably has also heard "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," even if they don't recognize it. I admit to a minor obsession with sugar plums. It's a yummy-sounding word, for one, and it combines two very nice things with all kinds of pleasant associations (sugar and plums). Sugar plums sound sweet and sparkly, little gem-like packages of wonderfulness.
I have been tracking down various sweets calling themselves "sugar plums" for years now. And lo, they are many and varied, ranging from this fairly sensible incarnation to chocolate-covered bonbons filled with plum puree (once also hawked by Vermont Country Store).
But nothing beats these. Greengage or "Reine Claude" plums, cooked and soaked in sugar. Still in their skins (and with pits intact) they come nestled in a little wooden box. Basically, they are to fruit what marrons glaces are to nutmeats, and if you don't like marrons glaces, then phooey! These plums-- Elvas Plums is the trade name for them now-- come out of Portugal; Williams-Sonoma was once my supplier but now I have to get 'em from Zingerman's. They sell so fast I had to sign up last year to get notification this year that the plums were in so I could snag mine before supplies ran out.
Anyway, I like these so very much that I featured them in "Homecomings." Some writers plug their favorite bands, or their beloved brand-name clothing... I plug weird food.
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Date: 2010-10-28 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-28 12:20 am (UTC)Food is always a good addition to a story, in my opinion! That opinion wouldn't be biased or anything...
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Date: 2010-10-29 03:14 am (UTC)I agree, unless the description is taken to extremes (a flaw of the stories I wrote as a teenager... I thought that food choices communicated something about characterization and my readers did not agree).
But for the most part, I want to know about the food... moreso than, say, the clothing or the literature. Harry Potter pushed my tolerance, though... we learned a lot about the (rather gross) food and virtually nothing about the more refined aspects of wizarding culture, possibly because the protagonist was a teenaged boy.