“You can take a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think”. The lusciously sticky prunes of Agen have only to touch your lips to end any token resistance to their sluttishness. It’s not difficult to detect whorish behaviour in a prune and it’s clear that thinking is not their strong suite; but they can certainly drink and they can certainly give pleasure. Armagnac is very much their tipple, although I don’t think that they would be averse to any good eau de vie and once they have drunk their fill, les pruneaux d’Agen will reveal their soft seductive sweetness as readily as any of les grandes horizontales.
I can’t understand why I’ve never made a dessert with pruneaux d’Agen before. It may be that I have indeed planned to do so but have ended up by eating them all while scanning the pages of cookery books, waiting for a recipe to catch my eye. It may equally be because I very rarely have Armagnac, or indeed any eaux de vie, in the house for the very good reason that if I did have them in the house they would only be there for a very short time. There is a strange anomaly in France in that Cognac and Armagnac are in short supply in the drinks department of supermarkets the shelves of which, rather surprisingly, are liberally stocked with whiskies and rums rather than their own world renowned product. But this is the Vendée and I’m sure that the scene is more favourable to these alcoholic prunes down in their home in the South West. One has the option of buying bags of pruneaux d’Agen either with or without their stones. I chose to buy the ones with the stones still in which, I felt, gave them a better chance of surviving the journey home, uneaten. The recipe I chose is a classic bistro recipe which is eminently easy to make but it it does need a ceramic quiche dish or a truly leak proof tin. There is also the fact that if the pruneaux are left to drink the Armagnac over a couple of days whilst they talk amongst themselves, it and they will be all the better for it.
Food, Photography & France 
ROFL – I bet those are happy, slutty prunes 😉
You’ll find that unhappy slutty prunes are few and far between:)
What a satisfying life 🙂
🙂
My Normand Grandmaman used to make this back in the days when no one worried about kids “drinking” alcohol in pastry. Hence my early love of Baba au Rhum. This pruneaux cakes was one of my favorites though because I adored the seeping of the prune juice into the eggy custard. Lovely, thanks for bringing back good memories.
That was my first experience of alcohol in food too! It was in Avignon in 1953…I’ve never forgotten it:)
Add 10 years to that and we’ve got a deal! 🙂
🙂
I do love the titles of your posts. They make me smile. 🙂
Got it right, then:)
You take ‘food porn’ to a new level! Those babes are lusty enough without alcohol, I only imagine how decadent they are after a tipple or two.
I can’t be alone in the kitchen with them:)
Ah, prunes in Armagnac!
That’s the ones:)
I used to always have them as a standby in a jar in my fridge…great with ice cream or Mascarpone cheese as an instant pud!
Very good with ice cream indeed….I do that often:)
But I’ve more or less given up the sweet stuff, so it is a thing of the past…
I’ve stopped doing so many of the things that I mistakenly did through a large part of my life…I’m hanging onto to sweetness:)
Well, good for you!
🙂
You’ve just given me my new goal in life, though I have no idea how I will ever taste, let alone bake one. Looks amazing. Love the writing.
Excellent:)
How have you convinced me of the prunes slutty seductiveness? I don’t even like prunes… But I guess I do now 😜
Who couldn’t like an slutty prune:)
Seductive little pudding. reminds me of a Far Breton, without the milk and cream.
You’re right…Far Breton is such a good thing too:)
Gorgeous. I am so mad at myself for not filling my luggage with bottles of Armagnac when we came home from the Gers several years back. Recently, I went to the liquor store looking for some and the cheapest bottle was about $75 US. L’horreur!
I found a little 1/4 bottle for 2.50€ 🙂
Ah, but you can make Armagnac approach the prune! And what separates a tart from culture . . . depends on the version of the tart naturellement . . . . written with love and huge laughter for the coming weekend when our very own ‘Celi’ will take herself and ‘our’ book to Portland and make the world rock!! All of you still have time to register for the live stream . . . [never mind the name here: shall fix next week!]
Here’s wishing Celi all the success in the world:)
This is stunning. I feel like you’re judging the slutty prunes though. Can’t they just be adventurous?
Thank God I didn’t venture into the gender of the prunes:)
Stunning – slutty and stunning!
🙂
A slutty prune… that trollop! It sounds like she was worth every penny, too. 😉
Good to see you back, Nate:)
You always give me a good chuckle. Your flan is so beautiful and no doubt lovely to eat. Wonderfully slutty!
Thanks for the visit, Teresa:)
Hmmmm Roger, this is my kind of recipe! It looks delicious! By the way I’m in Lyon again 😀 oh life is good here 🙂 xx
Lucky you….now that the weather is changing it must be great:)