Fruit

Damson

A tier

Damson is a small, oval, blue-black European plum relative (often classed under P. domestica subsp. insititia or closely allied) with intensely tart, astringent flesh that few people enjoy fully raw. Cooked with sugar it transforms into deep purple jams, cheeses, and gin infusions with inky colour and complex tannic fruit. Skin is tough; stones are small and clingy. The cook’s plum—never a pure dessert bowl fruit for most palates. Damson jam on toast and damson gin are cultural fixtures in Britain and similar climates. Trees are hardy and thrifty on marginal sites.