Ingredient

Greengage

The greengage is a small, round, green-gold plum with a honeyed, faintly almond-scented flavour that most people who taste a ripe one rank above every other plum. The season is short, the fruit does not travel, and an unripe greengage is disappointing enough that many people never meet a good one.

What makes it different

A greengage is a distinct group within the plums, known in France as reine-claude. The flesh is unusually dense and low in water for a plum, which concentrates the sugar, and the aroma has a honeyed, slightly floral quality with a faint note of almond behind it.

The colour is the trap. A greengage is green when ripe, so the usual plum ripeness signal — colour change — is unavailable. A hard green gage and a ripe one look similar from a distance and taste nothing alike.

Ripe fruit is amber-flushed rather than pure green, gives noticeably to a gentle squeeze, and smells sweet at the stem. Some varieties develop small brown freckles when fully ripe, which look like blemishes and are a good sign.

The gages worth knowing

Old Green Gage

The original English variety, small and outstanding. Shy-cropping and rarely sold commercially.

Cambridge Gage

The one most likely to be in a British shop. Slightly larger, a little sharper, still very good.

Reine Claude Dorée

The French standard. Golden-green and honeyed.

Oullins Gage

Larger, yellower, milder. A decent cooking gage and a less exciting eating one.

Season

Mid-August to early September in Britain, and often shorter than that.

Using them

The first rule is that ripe ones should be eaten raw and nothing else.

• Raw, at room temperature, which is the whole point of the fruit.
• A gage tart, halved and laid cut side up on almond frangipane. The almond note in the fruit and the almond in the tart reinforce each other.
• Poached briefly in a light syrup with a vanilla pod, which suits under-ripe fruit particularly well.
• Gage jam, which is delicate and pale and needs lemon — gages are lower in acid than most plums.
• In eau-de-vie or gin, where the floral quality survives remarkably well.
• Roasted with honey, twelve minutes only, so the shape holds.

Ripening what you bought too early

Gages are climacteric and will improve, within limits.

1. Leave them at room temperature in a single layer, not touching.
2. A paper bag speeds it up. Check daily, because the window between ripe and over is narrow.
3. Do not refrigerate before they are ripe. Cold stops the process and dulls the flavour permanently.
4. Once ripe, eat them. A ripe gage holds for perhaps two days and then deteriorates fast.
5. If they will not come good, cook them. Poaching or a tart rescues under-ripe fruit better than any other method.

Common questions