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I wasn't going to write about making Mirabelle plum jam this year as the crop from my one tree was even worse than last year. If you don't know the Mirabelle that's no surprise. This marble-sized yellow plum is very rare in the U.S. because the French declared it unique to the Lorraine area and import laws make it nearly impossible to transplant. I battled this tree and its over-abundant annual plum fall as a wretched mess for some 20 years before I discovered that Mirabelle jam was a revered French delight. I could kick myself, especially now as the tree has not shed those once-dreaded bushels for some three years.

My editor sagely noted that grape growers sometimes deprive their vines to induce concentration of flavors, a possible parallel to my plum crisis. Very well, I salvaged the paltry remnant of Mirabelles I could from the gourmandish foraging deer in my neighborhood.  A scant six pounds of unpitted plums yielded three pints of jam. A standard no-fuss internet recipe — rinse, cook in 1/2 cup water, remove pits, add some erythritol (or sugar, but not for me) to taste, stir a lot as you cook down — yields a creamy golden jam. These recipes all suggest adding small amounts of lemon juice, but Mirabelle plums need no extra tartness.

Maybe I just found what I hoped, but the reduced plum crop did seem to have concentrated the flavors. These pints were the best Mirabelle Golden Jam I've made — a singular clarity of flavor, mellow but tangy and somehow elegant. I've already devoured the lot ... well, except for small jars given to a few beggars. Plum delicious!

Out of curiosity, I went to the expense of tasting a couple of commercial jams, imported from France. I must say, they're very good, and not outrageously costly. But they are all too sweet for me and after all, their flavor does not match this meager batch from my tree. Most odd is one brand — Favols — that claims to add no sugar. I was especially eager to try this one. It was good, probably the best of the samples. But it dutifully reports on its "Nutrition Facts" label that "total sugars" are 18 grams per 40 gram serving. At 9 grams of sugar per tablespoon that's pushing the limit for me. And what happened to the "no sugar" claim? A-ha! They only used "sugar from fruit," it says on the label. That is, they didn't add table sugar — sucrose — which is itself half fructose, or "sugar from fruit." Alas, fructose is the real problem for dieters. The body stores excess sugar as fat, especially fructose. If they sweeten their "plum spread," as they call it, with the juice of Mirabelle plums, they may enhance the flavor of their jam. Good idea, but they also in effect mainline fructose — "mainline" because it's not locked in fiber.

Fructose is no problem in raw fruit: Mother Nature packages all that sugar in ample fiber, which ensures that most mammals don't overindulge. I do vividly recall one instance when Jim Harrison and I were enthralled watching a bear in an apple tree behind his house in Livingston, gorging through the night until it literally fell asleep ... and out of the tree! That animal's system knew that hibernation was at hand; cramming fructose until it knocked him out was a survival technique provided without fee by Doc Nature.

I'm thinking already of next year's Mirabelles. Maybe I'll try cassava syrup as the sweetener: no fructose. Let there be plums!

Jon Jackson co-hosts "The Food Guys" on Montana Public Radio. He is also a writer, jazz enthusiast, and has a passion for great food. 

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