Greengage

Greengage fruit are identified by their round-oval shape and smooth-textured, pale green flesh; they are on average smaller than round plums but larger than mirabelle plums (usually between 2 and 4 cm diameter). The skin ranges in colour from green to yellowish, with a pale blue "blush" in some cultivars; a few Reine Claudes, such as 'Graf Althanns', are reddish-purple due to crossbreeding with other plums.

Greengage fruit originated in the Middle East.^[6] Though "Green Gages" were previously thought to have been first imported into England from France in 1724 by Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet,^[7] a greengage seed was found embedded^{[clarification needed]} in a 15th-century building in Hereford.^[8] Supposedly, the labels identifying the French plum trees were lost in transit to Gage's home at Hengrave Hall, near Bury St Edmunds.^[9] More recent research indicates that it was a cousin and namesake Sir William Gage, 2nd Baronet of Hengrave who was responsible for introducing the greengage to England. ^[10] Soon after, greengages were cultivated in the American colonies, even being grown on the plantations of American presidents George Washington (1732–1799) and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). However, their cultivation in North America has declined significantly since the 18th century.

The name Reine Claude (French for "Queen Claude"), by which they are known in France, is in honour of the French queen Claude (1499–1524), Duchess of Brittany. A greengage is also called la bonne reine (French for "the good Queen") in France.^[11]

 

Greengages are widely grown in particular in western Europe. The core of their range extends from France to southern England. In Germany, where they are called Reneklode or Ringlotte, numerous cultivars have been developed too. In the Czech Republic, they are known as ringle, in Poland as renklody, in Hungary as ringló,^[12] in Slovakia as ringloty, in Slovenia as ringlo, and in Portugal as Raínha Cláudia. They are widely grown, typically for eating out of hand or stewing in syrup to make a compote. In Portugal, however, they make up a delicacy invented by Dominican nuns in the 16th or 17th century (when confined to their convents) in the town of Elvas, where they are boiled in a sugary syrup several times, over the course of several weeks, to then be preserved whole in syrup or dried, coated in sugar and eaten either with a local dessert, sericaia, made from eggs, sugar, milk, cinnamon and flour or eaten with rich cheeses.

 

At least the green cultivars breed more or less true from seed. Several similar cultivars produced from seedlings are now available; some of these include other plum cultivars in their parentage. Widely grown cultivars include:

The fruit has inspired a film, The Greengage Summer (called The Loss of Innocence in the USA) which is a 1961 British drama film set in France. It was based on the novel The Greengage Summer (1958) by Rumer Godden.

One Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch involved a deranged self-defence instructor (played by John Cleese) whose main hypothetical enemy was fresh fruit. When trying to get him to focus on more menacing foes, his exasperated students began ticking off the fruits they had already bravely battled, including 'greengages, lemons, plums, and mangoes in syrup!'

More recently, the tree features in the novel The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree (2017) by Iranian-Australian author Shokoofeh Azar.