Am I Plum Nuts?

Am I the only person who has eaten a plum nut?  Why are they not as popular as almonds?  So I did some research to find out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_culinary_nuts
  There was no mention of Plums

"The term stone fruit (also stonefruit) can be a synonym for drupe or, more typically, it can mean just the fruit of the genus Prunus."

"In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin; and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a shell (the pit, stone, or pyrene) of hardened endocarp with a seed (kernel) inside."

"Some flowering plants that produce drupes are coffee, jujube, mango, olive, most palms (including date, sabal, coconut and oil palms), pistachio, white sapote, and all members of the genus Prunus, including the almond (in which the mesocarp is somewhat leathery), apricot, cherry, damson, nectarine, peach, and plum."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupe

So I still have found no mention of eating plum nuts which taste like an almonds.

"Are Stone Fruit Seeds Poisonous?
The seeds (also known as pits or kernels) of stone fruits, such as apricots, cherries, plums, and peaches, do contain a compound called amygdalin, which breaks down into hydrogen cyanide when ingested. And, yes, hydrogen cyanide is definitely a poison.

But you can relax: The recipe calls for the seeds to be roasted. According to The Food Safety Hazard Guidebook, hydrogen cyanide is not a heat-stable substance and does not survive cooking. It may also help to consider that stone fruit seeds are just some of many common edibles that contain similar compounds when raw. Cassava (tapioca), lima beans, butter beans, sorghum, macadamia nuts, and flaxseed also contain significant amounts of cyanide but are safely eaten after appropriately processed: crushing, grinding, grating, soaking, fermenting, and drying all help make the items edible. "

http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/food/are-stone-fruit-seeds-poisonous

So now I am really plum nuts over plum nuts!   What do you think?  Have I found culinary secret?

Plums have a super-hard shell compared to almonds, thus diminishing their popularity as a food.

"Are Stone Fruit Seeds Poisonous? The seeds [...] contain a compound called amygdalin, which breaks down into hydrogen cyanide when ingested. And, yes, hydrogen cyanide is definitely a poison. [...] According to The Food Safety Hazard Guidebook, hydrogen cyanide is not a heat-stable substance and does not survive cooking.

The nuts are not roasted after they are ingested... In otherwords, it doesn't matter if hydrogen cyanide is heat-stable or not, since it isn't present during roasting, only after eating.

If roasting really does destroy the poisons in the seed, then yes I think you have found a culinary secret. They even come with a great naming option for marketing purposes.

On top of that, in my experience plums are far more productive with far less input than peaches. They thrive in a far greater climate range. The tree is much smaller than most nut trees. And they are fast to produce. This could be the perfect nut tree for the home gardener and hobby farmer.

I could really get excited for this. Generally I'm kinda neutral about plums. That's why I haven't planted one yet. If they also have a almond like nut, then maybe I better plant some this year. I'm gonna watch this thread with interest.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:

"Are Stone Fruit Seeds Poisonous? The seeds [...] contain a compound called amygdalin, which breaks down into hydrogen cyanide when ingested. And, yes, hydrogen cyanide is definitely a poison. [...] According to The Food Safety Hazard Guidebook, hydrogen cyanide is not a heat-stable substance and does not survive cooking.

The nuts are not roasted after they are ingested... In otherwords, it doesn't matter if hydrogen cyanide is heat-stable or not, since it isn't present during roasting, only after eating.

So what about the amygdalin?  Is that heat stable?  If it is, there doesn't seem much point roasting them as the hydrogen cyanide will still form after it's eaten.

Okay, a little poking around finds this article http://www.foodsafety.govt.nz/elibrary/industry/Cyanogenic_Glycosides-Toxin_Which.pdf which includes a chart saying that bitter almonds contain approx seven times the same toxin (amygdalin) as plum kernels. I'm having a hard time finding the processing technique, but they definitely grow and market bitter almonds as food, so I'm gonna say all we need is the proper processing for the plum nuts.

I'm pretty sure it's the amygdalin that you can destroy by cooking, so then there's no cyanide created. I've done it, removed the amygdalin by cooking.

Here in Ladakh we have lots of apricots, not many plums. The two best varieties of apricots here have sweet seeds that lack amygdalin, are not bitter, and are not toxic. You can gobble them down like almonds, but only if they are not bitter. Everyone here knows that bitter apricot seeds are something you shouldn't eat many of. Three or four is fine, but don't gobble a handful.

The bitter seeds are considered more valuable for their oil. I guess amygdalin is not in the oil, because the oil is not bitter and not toxic, though here it's used for religious purposes, not eaten (I've used it as salad dressing). But the oilcake (residue from expressing the oil) is well known to be highly toxic. Good friends of mine left a sack of it in their front corridor, and it smelled so good that two cows squeezed in and died right there in the corridor with their mouths and throats full. It was hell to get them out! However, a small handful of the oil cake used be given as a sort of daily tonic mixed with the daily food for the cows, though perhaps that was more for lack of rich food than for any major benefit.

But there is a traditional dish where you take the bitter seeds, grind them and stir them into boiling water, and then boil it for a good long time, until all the bitterness and toxicity is gone. Make sure you do this outdoors or in a well ventilated kitchen; a friend told me she did it indoors and started feeling a bit strange until she moved it outdoors. The traditional recipe is to add onions and garlic and use it as the gravy on a lumpy heavy pasta thing, kind of like peanut sauce. When I've made it, I've reserved some to add sugar and make a lovely almond amaretto-scented pudding. The last time I made it with my students, we were trying to make a huge amount for an upcoming party and it never lost its bitterness. I think we were trying to make too much at once and the liquid was too deep in the pot for the amygdalin to evaporate out well. We ended up throwing it away ... So from the previous times we made it, I'll recommend do it in as large-bottomed pot as you can, and make it no more than 2 or 3 inches (5 - 7 cm) deep, and stir it and agitate it continuously while boiling vigorously for at least a half hour. I've been told it loses the bitterness much faster if you churn it in a Ladakhi tea churn; but I don't think you'll have one of those at home.

I don't know if roasting the plum nuts would let the amygdalin out, considering that we have to grind the apricot nuts and stir them in boiling water for at least half an hour to get it out.

Interestingly, the sweet apricot nuts, unlike almonds, taste better unroasted. When roasted, they lose most of their sweet amaretto scent.

Continued...

Okay, some good information seems to be in this article http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/20/food/fo-almond20 , though this article https://www.smartkitchen.com/resources/bitter-almonds also has some good information. The important part here seems to be that the amygdalin breaks down to form hydrocyanic acid when it gets wet. The toxins in bamboo shoots break down into the same form and all bamboo must be processed to remove the cyanide. With that information I find this paper https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/publications/documents/28_Cyanogenic_glycosides.pdf which contains this information Bamboo shoots were cooked (one part bamboo shoots, 4 parts water) for 20, 100 and 180 minutes at 98 degrees C/ambient pressure, The shoots were then cooled in water, canned and sterilized.  The maximum removal of HCN was about 97%. The optimum conditions that resulted in this reduction of HCN were 98-102 degrees C for 148-180 minutes. That suggests to me that a long enough soak to break down all the amygdalin followed by a long boil to evaporate the cyanide would render plum seeds safe for consumption. I can see why the traditional preparations for bitter almonds that Rebecca knows involve grinding the nuts.

I haven't done any studies about this, but I have now decided that I will try soaking our peach kernels for a few days and then cooking them in the crock pot for at least a full eight hours, this next spring. Considering how much easier they are to shell than pecans I think they'll still be less labor intensive to harvest. I'd appreciate it if someone asks me about it next year, if I don't post an update. If I forget to try it with our peach trees, they fruit at the beginning of the season and I could still experiment with store bought peaches later.

edit: removed the word best, there's probably better but I haven't found it yet.

Hmmmm......interesting thread.  Starting from this link ==>  http://www.forestandfauna.com/summer-salad-with-toasted-wild-plum-pit-nuts/   ==> I'm intrigued by the possibility of another nut for northern regions.  We have a lot....a LOT!....of wild plum on our property.  They don't seem to be terribly long-lived, but they reproduce like crazy and are considered a large, brush-like item in our wind-break efforts.  In really good years, the flesh is tasty and valued for drying, jams, and freezer storage.  But some years the output is high, but the quality of the fruit rather low.....BUT still producing abundant pits.  So it may be interesting try try cracking a bunch in the future to see if it's worth getting the nut.  Come to think of it, I have a few large bags in the freezer of unpitted plums from a few years back and could thaw these for a test.

I found the plum nuts by accident.  I have dried plums aka prunes. I always buy the ones with seeds.  In one I found that the shell was broken in two.  After sucking on it a while I spit out the shell and the seed.  I thought this looks just like an almond.  I am saving all my seeds so I tossed it with the other plum seeds.

Then I read here on permies about people eating apple seeds even though they have cyanide. So the next time I ate a prune with a broken shell, I ate the seed.  To me it tasted about like almonds, except not so hard.

I just crack one open.  It was easier than some pecans.  But the seed had a thick sweet syrup on it and was rather hard so I will have to read more on the subject.  

I forgot to mention, we open the apricot seeds by cracking them on any rough or concave rock, with a smaller stone. The first few you don't know how hard to hit so you crush the shell and nutmeat together, but after 2 or 3 you can get the hang of it and steadily crack them all with just the right blow from a stone in your hand. Then you pick through and separate the shells out. It's the kind of work given to the household elders to do in the autumn, sitting in the chilly golden autumn sunlight, not too vigorous.

Anne, be careful about eating too many of those plum seeds. In Ladakh I've noticed some foreigners, having been given some sweet seeded apricots to crack and eat, think they can eat all the apricot seeds, and then start cracking and eating even the bitter ones. When I say "Whoah, don't eat too many of those! Didn't you notice they're bitter?" They'll say "Oh, I didn't mind the bitterness" or "I didn't think they were that bitter," and then I have to tell them all about the cyanide. So it seems to me that some people don't mind the bitterness of the amygdalin, or don't even find it bitter. I like bitter gourd, but I don't like those bitter kernels. So do be careful, if you don't find your plum kernels bitter, do check them with other people, and don't assume they're a safe variety until you're sure they're not bitter to others as well.

Thanks, everyone for the comments and information.

Rebecca, I love seeing pictures of your students doing the manual labor involved in processing your food.

So far I have only eaten three, about one a week.  I don't really like bitter things, though I can't say I have tasted much.  I have by accident occasionally gotten a bitter apple seed which I spit out because it was bitter. I really can't image people eating apples seeds but they do. I can't image these Plum seeds as bitter with that sweet syrup that was on the one I cracked.  I worried about tasting that syrup and the seed was so hard that I soaked it in water until it plumped up.  Thanks for the concern though.

So far I have only eaten three, about one a week.  I don't really like bitter things, though I can't say I have tasted much.  I have by accident occasionally gotten a bitter apple seed which I spit out because it was bitter. I really can't image people eating apples seeds but they do. I can't image these Plum seeds as bitter with that sweet syrup that was on the one I cracked.  I worried about tasting that syrup and the seed was so hard that I soaked it in water until it plumped up.

You may be referring to prunes that have been steamed perhaps under pressure to soften them to make them more pleasant to eat.  That would explain the syrup around the kernel because the shell of the pit is designed to soak in water to start the germination  of the seed.

If you were removing pits from plums to dry them [cut them opposite the grove in the flesh and open them like a butterfly and pull the seed from its attachment at the grove] you wold occasionally fine a shell that has split because the seed continued to grow after it started to harden.  This discussion has me thinking that sprouting the seeds might be a way to remove the bitterness and make opening easier. Sort of like pistachios. I have some peach pits so I think I will try sprouting them first. I put all the prune pits in the burnables so I don't have my compost full of volunteers. If I was drying a lot of plums then processing the seeds for the nut meat would seem to be a viable option. If you are pitting cherries that might also be an option.

I am sure I can remember either plum or nectarine nuts being used to make the filling in a stollen .

David

The OIL from plum nuts is known in nutritional circles, and is sometimes also used in HBA products (lotions, facial creams, etc).
https://www.lamotte-oils.de/en/products/product-range/a/si/p/plum-kernel-oil-1.html

Well this is just fascinating!  If I could safely eat plum nuts, that would be like getting a double harvest! I have loads of ripe plums right now. First thing will be to see how difficult it is to crack the pit...

This thread makes me wonder how many people know what Cyanide tastes like? It tastes like almond.

Lots of great methods for safe processing are listed in this thread. Great job folks, I love interesting reading such as this.

My people used to make the wild plum seeds into a delicious paste which was spread on fry bread for a treat.

Redhawk

Well, I haven't been able to open a plum pit yet...they are super tough.

I used a nut cracker, the shell is tough, not as easy as almonds or paper shell pecans.

Okay, will dig out my nutcracker!

In China, apricot seeds are the main "almonds."  While many are the Central Asian sweet pit varieties,  about 5% of each bag turned out to be bitter (smells wonderful like almond oil, tastes horrendous like HCN)--instability in the apricot variety or Chinese quality control that mixes the toxic with the safe?  The Chinese cook everything (b/c of a tradition of using nightsoil?), which basically solves the problem.  It does NOT destroy amygdalin.   Rather, what  happens is that chewing the seed mixes amygdalin with water and an enzyme (in another part of the pit's cells) to release starch, almond essence and deadly HCN.  [Almond essence (benzoyl alcohol if memory serves?) smells the same as HCN but has very low toxicity.  It boggles my mind that this smell is processed as "pleasant" given how noxious HCN is, but so it is.]  Cooking denatures the enzyme (protein) so that the amygdalin is never digested.  Mixing cooked nuts with raw celery or other things that have enzymes that can work on amygdalin is still dangerous, but Han Chinese essentially eat nothing raw (except some fruit).  It you make "marzipan," you are essentially triggering the enzymatic reaction in your blender and giving the HCN time to vent, rather than in your stomach.  Provided ventilation is good (& complete grinding/mixing & enough time), that is safe.  Look up how bitter almonds are processed and it will work for the pits of plums, bitter apricot,  peach, chokecherry, etc.  Bitter almonds are literally illegal in the USA because the Nanny State fears people will die from HCN  because they are too lazy or careless to learn how to process food.

Erik, Welcome to permies and thank you for the great explanation.

I remember reading a book which mentions the Hunza people and their processing of apricots, much as Rebecca describes.  The people of the Hunza valley (The Burusho or Brusho) live in Northern Pakistan, which is near where Rebecca is in Ladakh, but, despite having some similar cultural practices, are racially dissimilar.  If you search Hunza diet you will come up with a number of interesting links, including their dietary use of apricot pits.

Here is a very interesting article on these very long lived, super healthy people, and some specifics about the biochemistry of the toxicity issue.

I don't have all of my library with me, but there is also a reference from Tom Elpel in one of his books about an Indigenous American cultural practice of processing cherry pits (a method he also utilized) by crushing the whole wild pin cherries with the pits still in, and then drying the resulting mash in cakes.  If someone has his books, perhaps you can find the reference and verify the methodology.  

I eat plum pits.  I eat them because they have the cyanide in them.  Many MDs who have studied this issue believe that this particular form of cyanide goes into the body and only becomes bioavailable at the site of cancer within the body, which every adult over 30 has. It then destroys the cancer.   Dr. Tony Jimenez recommends eating 16 apricot pits a day as a prevention to cancer. I eat about 25 each summer. This relates to the amygdalin/ laetrile controversy of the 1970's.  Many holistic doctors have looked into the research and found that FDA/establishment cancer centers intentionally and dishonestly set up the research in order to prove that laetrile doesn't work, so they could preserve the profits from more financially profitable forms of cancer treatment.  These compounds are quite common in regular foods, like millet and almonds.

Check out "The Truth about Cancer."
John S
PDX OR

John Saltveit wrote:I eat plum pits.  I eat them because they have the cyanide in them.  Many MDs who have studied this issue believe that this particular form of cyanide goes into the body and only becomes bioavailable at the site of cancer within the body, which every adult over 30 has. It then destroys the cancer.   Dr. Tony Jimenez recommends eating 16 apricot pits a day as a prevention to cancer. I eat about 25 each summer. This relates to the amygdalin/ laetrile controversy of the 1970's.  Many holistic doctors have looked into the research and found that FDA/establishment cancer centers intentionally and dishonestly set up the research in order to prove that laetrile doesn't work, so they could preserve the profits from more financially profitable forms of cancer treatment.  These compounds are quite common in regular foods, like millet and almonds.

Check out "The Truth about Cancer."
John S
PDX OR

Steve Jobs tried eating apricot pits to cure his cancer, but he died anyway. https://www.cancerdefeated.com/newsletters/What-I-Would-Have-Told%20Steve-Jobs-if-I-had-had-the-Chance.html

Steve Jobs had pancreatic cancer but survived it for 20 years! Much longer than Patrick Swayze who was against all those holistic treatments and lived only 18 months.

https://draxe.com/steve-jobs-twenty-year-battle-with-pancreatic-cancer/

John S
PDX OR

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
Plums have a super-hard shell compared to almonds, thus diminishing their popularity as a food.

"Are Stone Fruit Seeds Poisonous? The seeds [...] contain a compound called amygdalin, which breaks down into hydrogen cyanide when ingested. And, yes, hydrogen cyanide is definitely a poison. [...] According to The Food Safety Hazard Guidebook, hydrogen cyanide is not a heat-stable substance and does not survive cooking.

The nuts are not roasted after they are ingested... In other words, it doesn't matter if hydrogen cyanide is heat-stable or not, since it isn't present during roasting, only after eating.

Hear here, Indeed it appears to be the microflora in our guts that  in attempting to break down that nut kernel creates the cyanide. There may be other processes that remove this possibility, but our guts alone do not remove the poison. Instead, they create it:
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/83873/2/Bolarinwa.pdf
If you want to try ingesting these, you might want to do a few nuts at a time and pay attention to their effect on you. Just don't graze a whole bowl while watching a football game, for example.

I think this is part of why some people soak their almonds before eating them, to remove some of the toxins.

I've found that almonds and pumpkin seeds that have undergone a few days of the sprouting process (soaked in water for 24 hours, then drained and rinsed, left in a dark place and thoroughly rinsed each day for 3 days I usually do) before being either dehydrated or baked, have a deeper and superior flavor than if the nuts or seeds are only cooked.  I would bet, plum and many other stone fruit seeds are eminently edible under this process.   I also do this to my grains, even though it makes them taste more like grass than a killer french baguette, because I have met 2 people in their mid 60's who are all but bouncing off the wall with good energy.  What do you eat?  A lot of sprouts...eat to live?  It's alive, it's alive!





Could always just be mistaken correlation, but I can also get pulled into the practice just for the appearance, even if stone fruit seeds will only make a tiny little node of a sprout after a week.

I find it incredibly easy and fun to get the nut out of the plum/peach/apricot seed by laying it on flat cement and smashing it vertically with a large flat stone. I find them in rivers when I go canoeing.
John S
PDX OR

Stark Bro's sells SweetHeart apricot trees, whose seed you can eat like those of the Central Asian cultivars mentioned in this thread. SweetHeart was carried by Miller Nurseries in the Finger Lakes region of NY state, bought out by Stark's when the Miller brothers retired.

I saved a lb of them from my SweetHeart tree in Kansas and just now, seven years later in the NM high desert where I rarely get fruit off my apricot trees owing to late frosts, was inspired by this thread to start cracking them (using hammer on anvil). The kernels are still fresh and tasty.

re/ unpopularity of "stone" fruits as foods: They're tough to crack efficiently without mashing them! Most people try hammers, or vice grips(TM), or vices. The secret for seeds with hard shells is inertia, not kinetic energy. A heavy metal wedge (e.g. for log-splitting) (high ratio of inertia:kinetic energy) (several pounds) wielded by a gloved hand, against another heavy metal wedge (with nut detained if needed by the other gloved hand), provides ideal means for hand cracking even black walnuts (after the husk is removed, and the nuts-in-shells cleaned and dried). [Additional hint: provide means to spread the impulse generated safely out over a strong support surface.] A hammer (low ratio of inertia:kinetic energy) tends to send shell pieces flying at high speeds, unpredictably, and smash the nuts besides. Vice Grips (TM) and vices are slow and clumsy by comparison -- vicegrip must be adjusted precisely for each kernal, and can pinch your hand when the shell yields under stress, and vice requires winding in and out for each item. A useful device, tradenamed Robo-grip pliers (TM), offers low-mechanical-advantage jaw travel until the jaws bite on the nut, then automatically pivots into a high-mechanical-advantage device, sufficient to do manual secondary cracking on black walnuts, for example. Industrially, oscillating wedged jaw machines provide the same effect at greater throughput rate.

The problem with amygdalin as "poison" is that all of our healthy natural foods have small amounts of these "poisons".  They are what help us to grow and develop.  We are not objects, and we aren't really even eating objects. We are alive and we are eating things that are full of microbes, enzymes, and other forms of life.  Many of these "poisons" help us to overcome autoimmune disease, cancer, and feed our gut microbiome and virome.  The process is called hormesis. It's why it's actually good for us to get hot and cold, to sweat, and to sprint.   We grow from challenges.  WE have evolved to need challenges.  Sitting is the new smoking.  Plum/apricot pits are just one of the forms of hormesis.  It's also why we should eat some portion of raw food, and a wide variety of foods,  even if cooked food has some nutrients that are closer to ready to digest in a stagnant model.
John S
PDX OR

I am so happy to have found this thread (!) as I am interested in the use of wild plum pits too. I have a pile of American plum pits, well-dried, that I have been nibbling one or two at a time, but I think it may be safest to grind and heat (boil or bake) them too.

Questions for some of you, if you would be so kind:

Rebecca -- Are the "lumpy heavy pasta" bits also made with bitter apricot flour? I have been watching YouTube videos about making prapu. They seem to use sweet apricot kernels, which I guess would make sense since you don't have to cook them for so long. But the "pasta" also appears to be made with apricot flour, which intrigues me.

Dr. Redhawk -- Is there anything more you might be willing to share about how to make the spread from wild plum pits? Does one grind and boil them? Do you happen to know the species of plum? I read a historical account from Post Oak Jim of Comanche people using wild plum pits, but yours is the only other account I have read. I nearly jumped out of my seat.  

About me: I am very interested in wild food, and am writing a book featuring 36-40 plants. I am hoping to share some good information about eating wild plum pits, and discuss safety concerns for all stone fruit pits.

Most sincerely,
Erica

Stanton de Riel wrote:re/ unpopularity of "stone" fruits as foods...The secret for seeds with hard shells is inertia, not kinetic energy.

If I may be so bold, the complete secret for seeds (kernels) with hard shells is:
1.)  Cleaning the meat off the nuts at the appropriate time, and doing a good and thorough job of it.
2.)  Cleaning and drying the nutshells properly.
3.)  The passage of time: let the properly cleaned and dried whole nuts cure for a couple of months in cool, dark, dry storage, this makes shelling much easier.
4.)  Then use inertia, not kinetic energy to shell the nuts.

In other words, the secret is to take the time and labor that is necessary to do the work properly.  I am so sick and tired of people always looking for shortcuts and then complaining about their mediocre end results.  What ever happend to just putting in the necessary time and doing the work properly?

I am curious why the roasting of such hard shell seeds/kernels is not held in higher esteem in this discussion.  Perhaps roasting destroys nutritional value, but I find roasting expands the flavors, opens up food-use options, and increases shelf life without the need for electricity or modern conveniences (like freezers) to maintain these particular harvests.  I know some history about how indigenous peoples roasted many of their foods as a means to create a winter/off season food supply, but I would like to know more if people might have any literary/educational references.

The associated fears of amygdalin and naturally occurring cyanide are so overblown as to almost be fearmongering.  The amounts are miniscule, only affecting people who might be genetically extremely susceptible to these naturally occurring chemical compounds.  It is only when evil human monsters found ways to replicate and hyper-concentrate such compounds in fairly modern times did these naturally occuring chemicals develop the horrid reputations they have now (my grandfather was gassed in 1918 during World War One).

If a person is very concerned about naturally occurring toxins then he/she better stay away from consuming raw P. vulgaris beans (common snap beans), as that family contains naturally occurring toxic compounds as well.  Other garden vegetables have same issues.  You see how this never ends?  I  have a serious issue with fear mongering, deception, and ignorance constantly being pushed as motivating factors for decision making.  I personally follow one simple, basic rule that has kept me safe for decades:  Do not put anything in your mouth that you are not 100% certain is edible and safe to consume.  Follow this simple rule and you will live a long, healthy life free from worry, irrationality, and fear.

I'll add a little of my experiences with plum seeds as a child. We used to make "yellow plum jam" with a small plum that my neighbour had in their front garden. I don't know what variety it was or whether it was a cherry plum. The fruit was quite tasty and round. We always cracked open the kernels and cooked them into the jam. Cracking them with a hammer on concrete was a satisfying thing to do, and there were always plenty of seeds, so if a few got crushed in the enthusiasm that didn't matter. I suppose the kernels got a good cooking as the jam was made, but I suspect that a few got eaten during the crushing process with no ill effects that I'm aware of yet. I think I would automatically add the kernels to jam if I was making it now, however my plum trees are yet to fruit for me here.

Nancy, thank you for sharing your experience.

Adding the nuts to the jam sounds heavenly.

Our first house came with a plum tree with small yellow plums. The plums did not taste that great though they made wonderful jelly.  The jelly was pink.

Erica Davis wrote:
Questions for some of you, if you would be so kind:

Rebecca -- Are the "lumpy heavy pasta" bits also made with bitter apricot flour? I have been watching YouTube videos about making prapu. They seem to use sweet apricot kernels, which I guess would make sense since you don't have to cook them for so long. But the "pasta" also appears to be made with apricot flour, which intrigues me.

Hi Erica, wow, you found videos of making prapu? I'm heading down a rabbit hole folks, see ya in a few days!
People in Ladakh definitely made it with bitter apricot kernels in the past. But nowadays it's a rare thing, a kind of interesting cultural exploration, so people tend to do it with sweet kernels because it's faster. And I guess in the past there were food shortages so it was a way to make bitter kernels into a tasty protein-rich sauce. Now with surpluses, people can afford to use sweet kernels for it.

The heavy pasta lumps, likewise, may have been made of buckwheat flour in the past, but are now often made of wheat flour. Buckwheat isn't grown much anymore here. I don't think they're made of kernel flour as I think it would dissolve. And I don't think it was made with dried apricot fruit flour, as prapu (aka tapu in upper Ladakh) was a savoury dish, not sweet or sour. At least, in Ladakh. But I can imagine trying something new, an almond flavored dessert with pieces of apricot in...

Hi Erica, wow, you found videos of making prapu? I'm heading down a rabbit hole folks, see ya in a few days!

Hi Rebecca, thank you so much for responding! Here is the video I found that appears to show the dumplings being made with very fine apricot kernel flour:  

Erica Davis wrote:Here is the video I found that appears to show the dumplings being made with very fine apricot kernel flour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLf_RB-Q38w

In the video they are obviously grinding apricot kernels, but the text below it says

Prapu is a noodle dish thickened with almonds that have been ground to a powder. The noodles are hand-made using wheat flour, then boiled until soft.

In the video at 1:35 he shows obviously white flour being sifted, and says "We are just using flour"... "and salt" though it's confusing because the previous shot is hand grinding the kernels until they are "like flour." But the noodle dough is visibly white flour, not ground kernels.

The text calls the apricot kernels almonds, and mentions ground walnuts and pressed apricot oil, which are not in the video nor in the prapu I've seen made. The text also mentions mountain herbs, but in the video, the sauce is obviously flavored with mustard oil, red chilli powder and turmeric.