Untamed and Unpredictable, Beach Plums Carry Allure Over the Years

Anyone who has lived or spent enough time on the East End has probably heard about beach plums.

The native fruit, which grows on flowering bushes in areas, as the name indicates, near the beach, has developed a cult following over the years, among a diverse group of people who seem attracted to it for various reasons.

Perhaps it’s the simple connection with nature the fruit offers, or the callback to a bygone era when gathering and foraging was part of daily life. For some, beach plums represent not only an opportunity to connect with nature and connect with the past, but to try something new from a culinary perspective, whether that’s creating a homemade beach plum jam or beach plum infused liquor.

During a time when even a good number of local farm stands often have a trucked-in-from-another-location feel to them, the allure of the beach plum remains strong, in part because it seems destined to resist the forces of domestication and commercialization.

As a species, beach plums have several traits that make them alluring to so many people. They are fickle — a bumper crop one year is followed by a pitiful yield the next season, and there’s often no discernible rhyme or reason to those fluctuations. They are not here to satisfy anyone’s palate the moment they are plucked, even when ripe. If you want to experience the best they have to offer in terms of their unique flavor, you have to work for it, according to local beach plum aficionados, who say that the taste they offer when ripe but raw is overwhelmingly tart and even a bit bitter. But when they are made into a jelly or jam, or even combined with one’s liquor of choice, they come alive.

Beach plums have also simply endured — they’ve been a part of the natural landscape for hundreds of years. Long before the more common grocery store varieties of plums were imported to North American shores by colonists and European settlers, beach plums were at home on the banks of local bays, the seaside and other waterways, and were a valuable resource for area Native American tribes like the Shinnecock and Pequot.

In short, the beach plum has stated its case, over hundreds of years: It is wild, and will stay that way, thank you very much.

History

The fruit most people think of when they think of a plum originated in the Middle East, spread to Europe and eventually made its way to North America. But beach plums were indigenous to coastal areas in this country before the European variety arrived. According to Elizabeth Post Meril’s book, “Plum Crazy,” the explorer Giovanni di Verrazano noted seeing beach plums on New York shores in the early 1500s, while other early explorers noted spotting the native fruit in other coastal areas and near waterways, from Martha’s Vineyard to the shores of the Hudson River.

In “Plum Crazy,” Meril writes that botanist Humphrey Marshall was credited with writing the first scientific description of the beach plum — Latin name Prunus maritima — in 1785. He described the beach plum plant by writing that it “grows naturally towards the sea coast, rising to the height of eight or ten feet, often leaning, and spreading into many branches. The leaves are oblong, rather smaller, and not so pointed as those of the common plumb; smooth and of a shining green on the upper side, but something lighter underneath, and slightly sawed on the edges. This is generally well filled with flowers, a few of which are succeeded by small, roundish fruit.”

Over the years, there have been repeated attempts to domesticate the beach plum, to grow and cultivate it for production, but those results have been mixed at best, more frequently either failing right off the bat or being abandoned after a while because the fruit’s inconsistent yield over the years was not worth the work it took to grow and tend to it.

Meril writes in her book that in the 1800s, Luther Burbank, a “famous breeder of plants,” attempted to cultivate a larger version of the beach plum, but his Giant maritima ultimately bore fruit that was as large as a grapefruit but “soggy.” She also writes that, in the 1930s, Ocean Spray marketed and sold its own version of Beach Plum Jelly, selling it alongside its well-known cranberry products, but it abandoned the project after a few years because the unpredictable variations in crop yield made it financially unviable.

Despite the fact that the beach plum never became a popular home garden or farm-grown fruit, it still found its way into kitchens and local markets over the years. Meril writes in her book that there are indications that beach plums were on the table at the first Thanksgiving, and that Puritan housewives harvested the fruit and frequently made beach plum jellies and jams, sometimes selling them at local markets.

Long before colonists from Europe arrived on the shores of Long Island, indigenous tribes were harvesting beach plums and using them in various recipes. Shavonne Smith is the director of the Shinnecock Environmental Department. She does not consider herself an “expert” on beach plums, referring to herself instead as a “continuous learner,” but, like many other members of the Shinnecock Nation, she is invested in making sure tribal members of all ages, particularly the youth, remain connected to the traditions and ways of life that have defined the tribe for hundreds of years. As director of the environmental department, she was part of the effort to develop a food sovereignty project for Shinnecock youth, and the beach plum has played a role in that effort.

“I work with other tribal members to teach the children how to hunt, fish, clam, garden and forage,” she said, adding that part of the program included creating pictorial calendars so the children would know what food was readily available by season.

“One of the foods we foraged was beach plums, and we took them over to the ocean to find them, during the heat of summer,” Smith said. “There are a few people who still gather beach plums for themselves and their families on Shinnecock. They are great for making jelly.

“It’s important that our children are able to recognize and know how to use all the wild foods that are here for us,” she added.

Range and Other Characteristics

The beach plum, of course, grows near the beach, and as such it has plenty of area to work with along the eastern seaboard. Its range is generally considered to be from Maine to Virginia, although some claim it grows as far north as Canada. Wild plums can be found along the Gulf Coast and even on the shores of the Great Lakes, but there is dispute about whether or not those fruits are the same species as the beach plums found on the East Coast.

Right now, beach plums are still many weeks away from ripening. They are currently abundant, but the fruits remain a soft green color, still needing ample time to transition from the red-purple-black hue they will take on when they are ready to be picked starting in late August through early October. By the start of summer, the beach plum bushes have dropped the beautiful white flowers they grow in May and June.

The Current Season

For those who have heard about beach plums and have had even just a passing interest in trying to harvest some and perhaps make a jelly, jam or other culinary creation using the fruit, this is a great year to give them a try. Al Daniels is a Sag Harbor resident who has been harvesting beach plums for decades, and is recognized as a local expert on the fruit. He describes himself as a “13th generation Bonacker,” and picking beach plums is a longstanding family tradition.

“All my descendants always dealt with beach plums,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of that was with making jams and jellies. My mom made beach plum turnovers and beach plum pie.”

Daniels is not a baker, however. He mainly uses the beach plums for a different purpose.

“Personally, I only make moonshine,” he said. The locally popular nickname for the homegrown alcoholic beverage featuring beach plums as a main ingredient is “Bounce,” although the nicknames for beach plum moonshine can vary even among different East End towns, according to Daniels, who said it often goes by the name of “Peekaboo Juice” in East Hampton.

The recipe for Bounce is pretty straightforward — beach plums, sugar and liquor of choice, combined in a glass gallon container. After “four months in a dark closet,” it’s ready for consumption.

Like many other people who gather beach plums annually, whether to make Bounce, jams, jellies or other concoctions, Daniels always freezes a good portion of his yield. It’s a smart move, considering how fickle the fruit can be from year to year.

“They’re weird,” he said. “You never have two good years in a row. This year will be a banner year; there’s a huge amount of beach plums.”

While they are unpredictable, one indication of whether or not the crop will be bountiful is the atmospheric and weather conditions in the spring. A lot of rain and wind in the spring months when the plants are flowering can lead to a poor yield.

There is the issue of whether or not they will be in abundance, and then there is the issue of finding them. The beach is obviously the place to look, although many locals like Daniels who have been gathering them for years on both the North and South Forks are often tight-lipped about the best spots to find them.

They are currently blooming in abundance at Foster Memorial Long Beach in Sag Harbor, on the stretch of land that separates the parking lot from the road. That area also is home to rose hip bushes, which also bear a small fruit that is often mistaken for beach plums.

Whether or not the yield is great, those who want to gather beach plums will need to work for it, and endure some challenges along the way. Daniels, who picks as much as 40 or 50 gallons in a year when the yield is good, has seen it all. Beach plums and poison ivy often grow in unison, so caution must be taken when picking, especially for those who are more susceptible to the poisonous plant. (Daniels said he seems to be unbothered by it, an indication that perhaps it is his family destiny to harvest the fruit).

“You have to cover yourself,” he said. “You almost have to put a full suit on. You also might deal with ticks, spiders.”

With all those obstacles, and the work it takes to clean, pit, cook with or store the plums, one might wonder what makes it worth the struggle. For Daniels, the answer is two-fold.

“People are into stuff that’s grown wild,” he said. “It’s a commodity that you can find, pick and process yourself. There’s great satisfaction in making your own stuff. That’s what the Native Americans did. And beach plums are kind of not readily available. It’s not something you can find anywhere, and it’s a taste you can’t duplicate, once you acquire it.”

That degree of novelty, increasingly harder to find these days, the callback to history, and connection to nature and an old way of living are all experiences that beach plums provide and will continue to provide, as long as they remain ubiquitous in the area. Considering how long they’ve survived and thrived, on their own terms, it’s likely they will remain a part of East End food and historical culture for many more years to come.