Illawarra plum

Podocarpus elatus · Fruit

40 pairings

The Illawarra plum (Podocarpus elatus), also called the plum pine, brown pine or daalgaal, is a dark blue-black bushfood "fruit" from a tall Australian rainforest conifer. What is eaten is not a true fruit at all but a swollen, fleshy, plum-like stalk (an enlarged receptacle) that carries a hard green seed on its tip; the juicy purple flesh has a sweet, resinous, faintly pine-scented flavour and is cooked into sauces, jams and desserts.

Picking a good onedrag

UnderripeOverripe

Blue-black and glossyThe eating and cooking ripeness: sweet, juicy stalk-flesh with a stewed-plum edge. Twist the green seed off and bin it, then eat the purple flesh fresh or cook it down.Buy it

ColourGlossy blue-black or dark purple, evenly over

SqueezeSoft and juicy, yields to a thumb and springs back

SmellSweet and plummy, the pine sitting behind it

Reading a just ripe one. Move the slider and the rest of this page — nutrition, pairings — re-scores with it.

Preparing