*grocery list: the pluot*
Me: Have you ever heard of a Pluot?
David: No.
M: It seems to be related to the plum. I bought some at the store. I couldn’t resist a fruit with varieties called "Dinosaur Egg*" and "Flavor Grenade."
D: Hmm. It’ll probably be like that — what was that thing called?
M: Grapple.
D: Yeah. The Grapple.
I saw the Grapple at Kroger a few years ago. "Looks like an apple, tastes like a grape," promised the label. How could I pass it up? The package of Grapples was safe at my house before I saw the ingredient list. (Ingredient list on produce? Always a bad sign.)
Ingredients:
Apples
Artificial Grape Flavoring.
Damn! So that’s why it smelled like purple and not like actual grapes. I had been scammed! After biting in I learned that it didn’t taste like grapes or like purple — just like an apple. A purple scented apple.
Fortunately, the Pluot is a real live hybrid fruit with no list of ingredients. It’s like the grandchild of three plums and an apricot. (Not to be confused with the Plumcot, which is 50/50, or the Aprium, which is 2/3 apricot and 1/3 plum.) I’m sorry to say that despite the exciting variety names, Dinosaur Egg and Flavor Grenade pretty much taste the same. And not terribly different from a very sweet plum. But I like plums, so that’s okay. The Pluot is sweet, juicy, and more filling than one might expect something so small to be.
I would love to hear a news story about an airplane being diverted due to a Flavor Grenade found onboard. That would totally make my day.
*It seems that "Dinosaur Egg" is a name for Pluots in general and not a specific variety.
