Lot et Garonne is justly proud of their prune industry. Agen prunes are exported worldwide and I have heard that many a Californian prune, is an Agen prune in disguise.
We are surrounded here by vineyards, fields of sunflowers and prune orchards. Some friends of ours have a prune orchard and I am always amazed at the variety of prune-inclusive recipes that are served up at their dinner parties. From aperatives, to main meals to the cheeseboard, from sweet to savoury and back again.
I no longer react to the prune as any Brit does, with faint amusement and horror. They have such bad press in the UK, perhaps due to their unglamorous reputation and infant-school-pudding-association. But I am now quite familiar with the humble prune and am able to appreciate it for it’s versatility and delicious taste.
Tonight Diddy and The Boy made chocolate covered prunes. So simple to do, with melting of dark, bitter chocolate over a bain marie, the delicate dipping of prunes balanced on the end of a cocktail stick, leaving them to set on the parchment paper and the liberal sprinkling of desiccated coconut and hundreds and thousands.
We enjoyed them after dinner and even The Boy after half a nibble, ‘testing’, had to be rationed to 3.
