What Is A Pluot?

Now that the stone fruit season is winding down, I want to pay homage to one of my favorites: pluots. Have you noticed these colorful-looking stone fruits at the farmer’s markets – and even at Trader Joe’s? Pluots are hybridized stone fruits that are roughly 75% plum and 25% apricot. They are a relative newcomer, having been developed in the late 1980s. What I love about their plum-like flavor is that they rarely exhibit the characteristic tartness of plums. Instead, they explode with sweetness. Nutritionally, they are very rich in vitamin C and potassium.

I grew up eating a handful of stone fruits: plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines. That was the extent of it, and in retrospect it seems so boring!

Pluots Come In A Multitude Of Colors

By contrast, pluots come in dozens of varieties and a multitude of colors such as green, crimson, purple, orange and pink. My kids are most intrigued by their colorful names, which match their colorful skins: Dapple Dandy, Dinosaur Egg, Emerald Beauty, Flavor Grenade, Flavor Treat, Flavor Queen, Honey Punch, Crimson Beauty, Crimson Royale and Splash, among many others that we’ve tried. Each of my kids has a personal favorite.

For now, we must be content with finishing our last remaining pluots of the season, until the late-spring pluot harvest comes around again.