Bequia Plums

I have never understood the love Bequia people have for the local plums, and Bequia people really, REALLY love their plums!  While it’s true that mangoes are a popular fruit, they are often left to rot on the ground where they have fallen.  You never see PLUMS rotting on the ground, they are picked before they ever have a chance to fall from the trees. Bequians watch as the fruit ripens, and the impatient ones who simply can’t wait get belly-aches from eating them too soon.

Mac loved plums. His mother’s tree always bore copiously, and every year he begged her to make stewed plums with cashew fruit.  This concoction was supposedly something to get excited about but I didn’t care for it much, in my opinion it was much too sweet and sticky.  Mac’s family and friends living overseas craved the stuff, and I reluctantly carried jars of the precious stew in my luggage for them, fingers crossed that the glass wouldn’t break en route to Canada.

For years there were two plum trees at the Pizzeria, one behind the building and one covering the extension.  My staff were Kings and Queens during plum season, they chose who could pick the fruit and who didn’t deserve the privilege, and woe to those who attempted to raid the trees without permission!  It was sad when the plum tree covering the extension died, but I was secretly happy because it meant the outdoor patio could finally have a proper roof!

Over the years I watched people as they savored the plums; everyone seemed to have his or her own style, sort of like the way everyone has his or her own way of eating a cinnamon bun.  It was common to roll the plums on a hard surface until the flesh inside the skin softened, this evidently made the fruit juicy. Some popped the whole plum into their mouths and transferred it from cheek to cheek until just the pit was left. Others nibbled their way around the plum, then sucked on the seed until the flesh was gone.  Peeling the plums is time-consuming but I have seen people do that too, kind of like peeling a grape but messier!  No matter the style or method, the look of contentment on the faces of those plum eaters said it all, they were in plum heaven.

Like all Bequia children, Vanessa and Rachel loved plums with a passion, and risked life and limb climbing trees to pick them. When we moved from Family Hill to our new house they were thrilled to discover two mature plum trees in the back yard, and once they realized how much their class-mates adored plums they decided to start a little fruit-vending business.  Plums don’t grow well on the mainland, they require dryer weather, and were therefore quite a treat for the Convent School girls. 

During the dry season when the plum trees were bearing Vanessa and Rachel’s daily routine changed. Before eating dinner they picked plums until it was too dark to see, then picked plums again in the dim morning light before catching the 6:30 ferry.  I helped the girls by washing and bagging the fruit while they ate a hasty breakfast, I think there were 6 plums per bag.  They sold each bag for 25 cents, and made a tidy bit of money for themselves!  The plums were snapped up by their class-mates before school began each day, although tell-tale stains on the girls’ white school blouses told me that they had eaten some of the profits.

To me, Bequia plums hold little appeal when compared to the fleshier plums in North America and I don’t care for them. If truth be told I would much rather eat a banana, but then again I was not born in the Caribbean. Those born here covet those little purple plums more than any other fruit, and eagerly anticipate them from the moment the trees start to bear. That’s why Bequia plums never make it to market!

A poem about Bequia plums by Vanessa

I tell you there is nothing sweeter
than a Bequia plum

There is no season –
not cricket not football
not rainy not dry
not carnival not nine mornings –
that can compare to the season
of the Bequia plum

When is plum season children fo’get
’bout mango, damsel and hogfruit
You think is seagrape they want?
They become sky grazers and bush rangers
of foreign yards
Looking to see
the colour red

But patience is a virtue
children do not have
so green and half ripe are
(drowned in salt, lime and pepper sauce)
robbed of their chance
Oh what a crime, to steal from the tree
it’s red ambition!

Then suddenly there it is:
burgundy melon of sticky afternoons,
taut skin over golden belly,
stains of gluttonous pleasure
on forgotten uniforms.

Oh the wine filled weekends
spent lounging in trees
barefoot and dyed
full of laughter and fruit!

There is nothing sweeter
than a Bequia plum
the only fruit I know never
to make it to market,
encased as they are
in the belly ache of a Bequia child