Even though the beach plum crop was thick this year, I have only made a single batch of jelly. So far, I should say. Having had just over a quart of unprocessed beach plums from the dunes in front of the house remaining, I cooked up a 50-50 mixture of them and apples by way of an experiment.
Putting up jelly and such things is a way of slowing time, I think. Along with the beach plums, I have made a batch of pickled corn relish. Six jars sit on the kitchen mantelpiece to be opened later this fall, one by one. I want to can some tomatoes, too, if I have a minute.
Last weekend’s weather exposed many beach plum bushes along the beach. One that I picked up had roots that extended more than 10 feet, a hint of how they survive by reaching down into groundwater from their sandy perches.
Plum Island, which one passes on the ferry from Orient Point to New London, is said to have been named for the fruit. A 17th-century Dutch map credited to Adriaen Block called it Pruym Eyelant. Block reconnoitered Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River in 1614.
Block was nothing if not literal: Rhode Island may have been so called by him for the color of red soil he noticed there. His ship, Onrust, which translates to Unrest, that is, restless in English. The 44-foot-long jacht is thought to be the first European-made ship in what would eventually become the continental United States.
But it is not Block that I think about when I gather beach plums. Rather, my mind fills with images of the Indigenous people who lived here for so many centuries before he and his crew arrived. Early accounts of native cooking mention beach plums flavoring venison stew. That is something I would like to have tried.