If you like apricots and plums, you might also like the Pluots, which is a cross between the two. It has the rich, round texture of stone fruits and the mild sweetness of both. This fruit is called a “plew-ott” and is ready to eat by the end of summer, and you can find it until October. You can eat it raw, cook it down, or put the pretty spotted orbs in your lunch bag to get a naturally sweet snack that is made by nature.
The plant with the strange name “pluot” is a cross between a plum and an apricot. Pluots are very sweet because they have a lot of sugar and come in many different flavors. The real proportion is about 70% and 30% apricots, but they mostly look like plums. They are very healthy and low in fat, making them great for snacking or adding sweetness to other foods.
What are Pluots?
The pluot came from the less popular plumcot, wade by plant breeder Luther Burbank in the 1920s. This hybrid has an interesting past. Usually, 50 percent plum and 50 percent apricot are mixed to make the plumcot. Floyd Zaiger, who owns Zaiger Genetics, made a version of Burbank’s plumcot called the Plum Parfait and Flavorella. This was 60 years after Burbank’s plumcot was first made.
In the 1990s, Zaiger changed the name of the fruit from plumcot to pluot because it was hard to grow and ship. He also changed the proportion of plums to apricots, so now most fruit samples only have 25–40% apricot DNA. Slowly, these fruits made their way into grocery stores. In mid-to-late summer, you can find these fruits with spots at their best. You can find them in a wide range of colors and sizes that come from their genes, from the size of a ping pong ball to the size of a fist. You can also find pluots, which look like plums but have spots on them.
The plot sounds like a portion of GMO food, but it’s a mixed product. Apricots and plums were band-pollinated to make the fruit, which is different from a portion of GMO food. Depending on what kind of plum it comes from, the pluot can be any color in the rainbow, from pinkish red to bright green to dark purple.
Varieties
There are many different kinds of pluots, which are different depending on how much apricot and plum are in them. However, remember that Zaiger Genetics has a trademark on the name pluot so that you may see the fruit labeled as apriums or apriums. Keep in mind that a plumcot is not the same as a pluot. A plumcot is more of a 50/50 mix of apricot and plum, while a pluot is more plum than apricot (ratios can differ). You might see names like the Dapple Dandy, the large Dinosaur Egg, the Red Ray, the Flavor Penguin, and so many more for pluots or fruits that look like pluots.
Pluots are sometimes called “Dinosaur Eggs” because some have strange colors that look like the skin of a dinosaur. TA pluot grower in California has trademarked the name, but there are still a lot of different kinds with strange-sounding names. Varieties like the “flavor grenade,” “dapple dandy,” and “flavor go,” as well as the “hand grenade” and “last chance,” are pretty common. The “flavor heart” is one of the biggest types of the lot. It is shaped like a heart and has black skin and yellow flesh. The “candy stripe” has red skin with pink and yellow stripes.
What do Pluots Taste Like?
A pluot has a sweet taste that is similar to that of a plum. The pluots that are dark pinkish-red are sweeter, and the pluots that are lighter and more yellowish-red taste like golden plums. The skin isn’t bitter like a plum’s; in this way, it’s more like an apricot. The texture of apricot also comes through, and most pluots have thicker, rounder flesh than a plain plum. If you can find a green pluot, try it. It’s not unripe, but the flavor is more tropical. When you cross a plum and an apricot, you get a fruit that tastes and feels like a plum but is sweeter and less acidic. You can eat pluots fresh or bake them into tarts, crisps, and cobblers. They come in various colors: spotted, striped, yellow, green, crimson, and plum.
Storage Tip
Keep pluots that aren’t ready in a paper bag on the counter. If your fruit is already ripe, leave it in the fruit basket out of the sun for a few days or put it in the fridge for up to a week. Since they go bad quickly, it’s best to eat fresh fruit immediately. The fruit can also be frozen. Cut them up and put them on a baking sheet with a rim and wax paper. Once frozen, please ut them in a bag with a zipper and keep them in the freezer for up to 6 months.
How to Eat Pluots?
Pluots taste great on their own, and they can be used instead of plums, apricots, or even cherries in pies, cakes, and jam. They taste great as a cooked chutney or sweet sauce served with pork, chicken, or fish. This delicious fruit is in season from spring to fall, when they are at their juiciest. Choose fresh pluots the same way you’d choose a plum. Look for fruits with smooth, unblemished skin that are bright and juicy. The flesh should give a little when pressed (overly firm pluots will not ripen well at home).
Because of all of these things, the pluots are also a great fruit to use in cooking, especially in jams, chutneys, sauces, and baked goods. You can slice the pluot thinly and use it to decorate a buttery cake or stew it down to make a rich coating for the ribs you’re grilling. Treat the pluot the same way you would a plum or other stone fruit when making jelly or other foods that can be stored. It’s easy to use, just like a plum, peach, or apricot.
When pluots are ready to eat, the fruit gives when pressed and has a strong scent. People should treat them with care like they would a plum. The sweetness of the pluot makes it a great addition to many dishes, like a cold summer fruit salad. You can also put them in ice cream or yogurt or use them to make a sauce for pancakes. People often cut them up and add them to cereal to make it sweeter. Plums that have been blended work well in smoothies and alcoholic drinks
Best Pluot Recipes
Sweet Pluot Recipes:
- Pluot Jam
- Pluot Tart
- Pluot Salsa
- Pluot and Blueberry Crisp
- BBroiledPluots with Brown Sugar
- Broiled Pluots with Zabaglione
- Pluot-Amaretti Trifle
- Spiced Crostata with Pluots
Savory Pluot Recipes:
- Pluots and Pork
- Savory Pluot Flatbread
- Pluot Summer Salad Recipe
- Crispy Pork Belly With Pluot Chimichurri
What are the Health Benefits of Pluots?
Aid in Digestion
Like many other fruits and vegetables, pluots are a great source of fiber. Fiber makes our stools bigger and helps us digest our food better. It can help us digest food faster, control how often we go to the bathroom, and keep our digestive system healthy. Fiber also helps with constipation, bloating, diarrhea, cramping, and more serious conditions like Crohn’s disease and gastric ulcers. Lastly, fiber can help lower the risk of heart disease because it keeps cholesterol from building up on the walls of arteries and blood vessels.
Boost Immunity
Plums are good for our immune systems because they have a lot of vitamin C. Vitamin C makes our bodies make more white blood cells, which are our main defense against harmful pathogens and foreign substances.
Speed up Healing
Vitamin C keeps us healthy, but it also controls our metabolism and speeds up the growth of new tissues and the healing of wounds. It is an important part of scar tissue and is also needed to make muscle tissue, cartilage, dental tissue, skin, tendons, and blood vessels, among other things.
Antioxidant Properties
Vitamin A and vitamin C are two of the healthiest things that can be used in many different ways. Plums are a great source of both of these vitamins, which help the body fight free radicals. Vitamin A can be broken down when the body needs beta carotene. This helps improve vision, prevent macular degeneration, and keep the skin from aging too quickly. Free radicals are dangerous byproducts of cellular metabolism. Antioxidants, like vitamin C, can neutralize free radicals in the body.
Improve Fluid Intake
The importance of water intake in the body is one of the most important new things we’ve learned about health in the past few years. As you may know, more than 70% of our bodies are made up of water, and being dehydrated is a big problem that can lead to serious health problems and less efficient metabolism. Pluots have a lot of water for a fruit, so eating one of these tasty treats can help you stay hydrated.
Nutritional Information
Plums have a strong flavor and are often full of vitamins A and C. They also have very little fat and no sodium or cholesterol. They are very sweet because they have a lot of sugar, but each one only has between 40 and 80 calories, depending on its size. Most of them are grown in California’s Central Valley, and you can buy them from late May to late September.
Origins in Hybridization
People are wary of pluots because they think this strange fruit must have been made in a lab, but this is not true. Floyd Zaiger, a fruit breeder from California, came up with pluots. They were sold for the first time in 1989. Zaiger had to crossbreed for a few generations before the modern pluot was born. The “plumcot,” made by Luther Burbank in the late 1800s by crossing plums and apricots 50/50, was used as a base for Zaiger’s work. The process of hybridization is a very complicated one. Climate control must be just right, and pollen must be moved carefully with a tiny brush. Zaiger’s Genetics has a trademark on pluots, and there are now at least 25 kinds of pluots you can buy in stores.
Conclusion
The pluot is a fruit that tastes like a mix of plums and apricots. The plot comprises 60% plums and comes in more than 20 different kinds, each with color and taste. The pluot is a type of fruit in the genus Prunus, which also includes almonds, apricots, peaches, and cherries. Contrary to what most people think, pluots were not made by changing their genes. Instead, they were made when the farmer and geneticist Floyd Zaiger crossed plums and apricots.
There are many kinds of apples, but there are also more than 20 kinds of pluots. These are the Candy Stripe, the Flavor Heart, and the Dapple Dandy. You can buy pluots in August at many grocery stores and farmers’ markets, and sometimes you can even find them in October. Many pluots in the grocery store come from California, where most fruits are grown. However, pluots can grow in the same climate as peaches, apricots, and plums.
