I read in the paper
the other day that the prune industry has received permission
from the government to market their product as "dried plums" instead
of prunes. It seems that the word "prune" has acquired an unpleasant
connotation as well as a supposedly unfortunate identification
with the over-the-hill age group. I believe the thinking behind
the change is that the term "dried plums" will hold more appeal
for those tanned, fit, health-seeking youngsters who don't believe
they'll ever grow old or need the benefits that prunes are reputed
to bring.
Mind you, this is the
same younger generation that thinks nothing of dropping all sorts
of bathroom words in public and at great volume. I can't believe
that scatological conversation of any kind could offend them.
Are we to believe that they can't deal with the word "prune,"
or even big words like "laxative" or "constipation?" These are
the same people who flock to movies that display every bodily
function without a blush. When, please, did the younger generation
develop such delicate sensibilities? Give me a break!
Which leaves me with
the distinct impression that the prune people are really just
trying separate prunes from their image as old folks' food. I
have news for them: like the prunes they're trying to sell, we
old folks may be wrinkled, but we're powerful. You can't afford
to alienate us. Face it, prune people: you'd better hope that
your name-changing campaign is a success, because if your strategy
doesn't snag the younger market you may be left with NO market,
having offended the over-the-hill crowd. We're likely to turn
to the powdered high fiber products and snap our fingers at you,
snarling "That for the insult!"
I must confess that
I am offended for more personal reasons than most. I'm not much
of a prune aficionado, although I do have a recipe for a really
good oatmeal/prune bread that I found in Yankee magazine a few
years back. I make it a couple of times a year, and the whole
family (old, middle-aged, young adult, teenagers, and really young)
loves it. That's the extent of the family's prune consumption
these days. But I have in my heart a fondness for the wrinkled
fruit, and a connection that goes back a long way to ancestors
I never even knew.
One of my great grandfathers,
Orrin Henry Barnhart, was in the lumber business in the then-sleepy
little town of San Jose, California. In the early 1900's, he took
it into his head to go into politics, and ran for mayor. He lost
by some absurdly small margin (the family legend says 7 votes),
whereat he retired in a huff to a prune ranch.
You might think that
"orchard" or even "farm" would be a more appropriate term, but
I assure you that "ranch" is what it was called. The property
was situated on almost an entire section of land in the beautiful
Santa Clara valley, where it lay between the old two-lane Highway
101 on the west, and the Coyote Hills on the east. Coyote Creek,
a large stream that held water even during the long, rainless
summers, flowed through the ranch. The place was almost self-sufficient,
as the family raised animals for food and grew vegetables and
flowers in a large garden. There were a few apricot and peach
trees near the house, but the main crop, the money crop, was prunes,
or rather prune plums, acres and acres of them spread out in long
rows across the valley.
It sounds like an idyllic
existence, out there in the sunshine where the hills grow vivid
green each winter, and in the summer dry to a soft gold. My father,
who grew up on the ranch, had a pony cart to drive to the one-room
school a mile or two down the road. The main north/south tracks
of the Southern Pacific Railroad lay just to the west of Highway
101, and the ranch had a whistle-stop at Coyote (not a town; just
a water tank). In those days, there were many hobos riding the
rails, and one of them confided to my father that they had placed
a secret sign on the ranch gate, because my great grandmother
was known never to turn away a hungry 'bo.
Apparently my father
spent a lot of time swinging on that gate when he was young, watching
the world go by. One of his aunts made some good spending money
from Reader's Digest for sending in the tale of his first encounter
with that new-fangled invention, the automobile. A shiny red Reo
had broken down right outside the gate, and the driver, who was
trying to repair something, saw the little boy and said: "Son,
do you have a monkey wrench?"
"No," came the reply.
"We have a prune ranch!"
That part of the country
is very different now. A few prune plum trees still grow in the
area, but there is nothing like the miles and miles of white blossoms
you could see in the spring, even when I was a girl. My father
talked about seeing salmon swimming up Coyote Creek to spawn.
Nowadays, the creek is sadly diminished, and even, in some places,
hard to find. When California put a new, multi-lane Highway 101
down the eastern side of the Santa Clara valley, my father snorted:
"They've just paved over the best swimming hole in California!"
Once their children
had grown and left home, my great grandparents sold the ranch.
All seven of their sons and daughters retained a great love for
the old place, however, and loved to tell stories of the good
old days whenever they got together. Devalued as it was by the
Depression, Great Grandpa Barnhart's land was not the rich legacy
he'd hoped to leave his children, at least not in monetary terms.
They did, however,
come away from the old place appreciating the efficacy of prunes
when it came to living a healthy life. My grandmother, the eldest
Barnhart daughter, lived with us. Believe me, she knew just about
every way that one could possibly prepare prunes for the table.
Her breakfast every morning began with a bowl of stewed prunes.
We had pork roasts stuffed with prunes. We ate prunes as a snack.
We had cinnamon buns with prunes instead of raisins in them. We
often had desserts of prune whip or prune duff. At Christmas,
Grandma chopped dates and nuts and stuffed them into prunes. She
then rolled them in powdered sugar, put them into old See's candy
boxes, and gave a box to each family member. You'd unwrap the
package, look at the box, and pray that this year it would be
chocolates. It was always prunes. We were a regular family.
Fortunately, my mother,
not my grandmother, was the chief cook and menu planner. The tiny
orchard at our own house bore other fruits. Apricots, fresh or
canned by my grandmothers, were a regular feature at meals. We
had a couple of kinds of plums (Green Gage is the only one I remember)
and a peach tree or two. We kept a crate of oranges by the back
door, and there was even a pomegranate tree in the side yard.
It was quite possible to get through several days at a time without
having to eat prunes. Grandma was the only one who insisted on
a daily ration.
In the years since,
I haven't thought much about prunes. I'm certainly not about to
sit down to a large bowl at breakfast time.
Perhaps it's foolish
to be bothered by the prune industry's efforts to rename its humble
fruit, but there's something homely and honest in the word prune.
It's just so...what
it is! I harbor no ill will for those people marketing their dried
plums, but I don't think I'll hurry to buy any. My heart belongs
to Great Grandpa. After all, who would want to retire to a dried
plum ranch?
