Berry jams are probably the most popular in the U.S. When it comes to jams, we rarely consider plums. I love plum jams because they have a unique candy-like sweetness that is tempered by a little acidity and a smooth texture. Below are three types of plums that produce exceptionally one-of-a-kind jams:

Mirabelles: If you have even the slightest sweet tooth, these plums are seriously addictive. Mirabelle jam has dark yellow colored chunks of juicy sweet mirabelle plums. Don't be surprised if you start eating the jam straight from the jar with a spoon. This jam is delicious on buttered toast. These plums are a specialty in the region of Lorraine in France.

Reines Claudes (Greengages): These green wild plums produce a vibrant orange-brownish colored jam. Eating this jam is like eating a decadent confection produced solely for royalty. Reines Claudes are cultivated in the United States, England, and France. The name "Reine Claude" originated from the 16th century in France and refers to queen Claude, the wife of Francis I. Its other name "Greengage" refers to the Gage family that brought the plums from France and cultivated them in England during the 18th century.

Quetsches: They look like large luscious deep purple grapes. Quetsche jam often has a delicate succulent sweet flavor. Quetches come from the regions of Alsace and Lorraine in France where they are used to make desserts and eau-de-vie, clear colorless fruit brandy. Try this dessert at home: Questche plum tart with walnut cream.

Plums won't be here for a couple more months, but this image was far too pretty to wait until later in the season. It's a nice reminder that plums come in many different colors, a fact we sometimes forget because grocery stores typically carry only the purple ones. It gets me excited for the coming of the summer fruit!

Thanks to Loua for adding her picture to the Slashfood Flickr pool.

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I was sitting at my computer yesterday afternoon, mindlessly reading blogs and looking for a little writing inspiration when I picked up a plum that I had gotten from the kitchen just a little while earlier and bit into it. The taste of that particular plum (its brethren are pictured above) transported me back 20+ years and several thousand miles, into the back yard of the house in which my family lived during our Los Angeles years. That house had several plum trees, a really large one in the back and a couple of smaller ones along the side of the house, on the strip of ground that separated our space from the neighbor's.

As a young kid I got a profound sense of pleasure whenever I got the opportunity to pick my own food. It satisfied my longing to be like Laura Ingalls Wilder. My mom often made jam with the plums from those trees, although in those days it was always a little too saucy as she couldn't bring herself to add the sugar required to make it jell. Still, it was always delicious, especially because it came from our yard.

I do love it when a bite of some seemingly ordinary foodstuff gives me the opportunity to travel through time and space. Are there any foods that are similarly evocative for you?

When I first saw this picture, my first impulse was to want to crawl straight into it. Check out that bowl of yellow and orange plums, with the sliver of water in the background. I want to be there.

There are a number of fantastic things to do with plums like that. Jam would make them last long past the summer season. A big crumble would be delicious dessert to serve to friends and family. You could also stew them down into a chunky sauce and serve it over pancakes, corn bread or scones. Oh the options!

Thanks to benderbending for the photo

These are not quite muffins, nor are the cupcakes. They are cup cakes. By this, I mean that they are individually portioned miniature cakes and do not quite fit into either of the two standard miniature cake categories. In spite of the semantic issue here, they look delicious. This particular batch of Plum Cup Cakes with Oatmeal and Almonds was baked by Zarah, of Food and Thoughts. The cakes are made with a combination of oat flour and plain flour, which gives them the sweet flavor of oats and a moist, tender consistency, without the texture of rolled oats. The recipe for these comes from the Italy-based food blog Lucullian Delights, but because plums aren't in season at the moment, you might want to bookmark it and come back to make the yourself later in the year, or simply try substituting another fruit (perhaps a berry) in place of the seasonal stone fruits. The cakes could be served as coffee cake for breakfast or brunch or with a small dollop of whipped cream for dessert.

A pluot is a relatively new fruit, developed in the late 20th century by Floyd Zaiger, a hybrid between a plum and an apricot that is touted by growers as having all of the good properties of both fruits, and none of the drawbacks. They have a very high sugar content, are smooth-skinned and do not have the tartness that is often associated with plum skins. Their flesh is a little bit firmer than that of plums, similar in firmness to the flesh of a ripe nectarine, so they hold up better to being eaten out-of-hand or sliced up than plums do.

Last week we heard about a man who stole 27,000 pounds of steak. But after uncovering some more food thievery, it seems that some people will steal just about anything that isn't nailed down. And that means that even roots aren't secure enough:

Thieves stole 150 plum trees from an orchard in Hungary. They were uprooted and removed from the site during the off-season. The trees were valued at approximately $9,500.

In Tennessee, a 53-foot trailer containing 2,880 cases of Red Bull was stolen by thieves who really must have taken to hear the message that "red bull gives you wings."

In a possibly related theft, a trailer containing $100,000 of Kraft sauces was stolen in the same city in Tennessee. The trailer was later recovered, but the sauce was gone. We'll have to wait and see whether anyone reports a truck of stolen chicken wings, which might explain the disappearance of the sauce.

A London auction house is offering part of a collection of war-time spy memorabilia owned by the late Doreen Mulot, who was a member of Britain's Special Operations during World War II. One of the most unusual pieces in the collection? A pair of aged prunes.  The now hardened fruits were originally intended to carry messages to prisoners of war. After being softened in water, the pit of the prune would be removed and a message - usually maps or escape plans - sealed in waxed paper would be inserted inside. The prunes would be re-dried and shipped out.

Mulot's great nephew is the one offering the prunes and assorted other memorabilia for sale. He described the plans as being "quite ingenious, [and] not the sort of thing you usually associate with fighting a war." This particular pair of prunes was not used during the war, but were simply kept as a souvenir of Mulot's service.

I usually leave the craft blogs to my better half, but poco-cocoa seems to be just as much food blog as craft/home blog. Particularly cool, I thought, was Crystal's tablecloth, embroidered with "This Is Just To Say," by William Carlos Williams. Most of you are probably familiar with the poem, perhaps Williams' most famous, about a couple of plums and an icebox. If not, it's printed in its entirety (all 12 lines) over at poco-cocoa. I've always been fond of WCW's simplicity, and I think it's especially pertinent as it applies to food. Also, I like the idea of keeping this poem around in the kitchen or at the table. It's a cool project, indeed.

[Photo: poco-cocoa]

 I'm obsessed with clafoutis lately, it's like a custard pie without the dough and makes a luxurious delicious bed for fresh fruit. Most clafoutis use cherries but this lovely one from food blogger Orangette uses black plums.