A Good Year For Plums

My cousin wanted to know what kind of plums to use in the dumplings. I think they were originally made with wild plums from the windrows. The Bohemian Alps area of Nebraska has lots of wild plums with pretty blossoms in the spring. I think my mom made the dumplings with most any kind of plum except the very black ones. Lincoln has a family-owned grocery store called Ideal, and when I was a kid the grocer still hand-selected the fruit, put it in a brown paper sack, weighed it and marked it with a grease pencil. Each year Ideal had a Plum-a-rama sale when plums were in season. That whole wonderful shopping experience is linked into the taste memory of the dumplings. Therefore, I think the plums should come from a farmers market, or else you might have to time travel back to a different grocery era.

The supermarkets in my current neighborhood are such unpleasant places that my interest in food and cooking is nearly wiped out. So, in a way, blogging is a weight loss program.

This is a wonderful book about life, seasons, hobbies, wisdom, and food in the Bohemian Alps part of eastern central Nebraska:

Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps, by Ted Kooser, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, paperback.