IS PRUNE KING PLUM CRAZY?

King Prune's five-year reign as head of Royal Prune University is in dire peril, because the California Prune Board has just changed its name to the California Dried Plum Board, hoping that calling prunes dried plums will boost worldwide sales of its product, in the same way as the humble Chinese gooseberry rocketed to popularity when New Zealand growers marketed it as Kiwi Fruit.

"Who would take any notice of me if I adopted the ridiculous title of King Dried Plum, of Royal Dried Plum University?" asked King Prune, tears streaming down his wrinkled face. "That would make me a laughing-stock. If everyone adopts the name change, we'll have to alter thousands of words on our Web site. Worse still, we'll have to prune our staff."

Royal Prune University (www.rpu.com) is one of the strangest and most amusing educational sites in all Cyberland. It contains everything anyone would ever want to know about those dried, sometimes leathery, sometimes delicious black plums, which have been the source of so many jokes, because of their well-known laxative properties. In medieval England, bridal biscuits were first enriched with spices and then with "plumbs," a term for dried fruits.

Why did King Prune found the university? "For far too long the overwhelming forces of sensibility have conspired to crush and drive the silliness out of us," he explains. "Such pressures usually begin in childhood, feed on themselves during school years and after, and often make us suffer terribly as we get older and perhaps learn that our show has closed before it ever really got to Broadway.

"Out of concern for this, RPU was founded to provide a prestigious and academic counter-force against all of the unsilliness out there. We want to be there for those who agree with us and would like some support in their efforts to make the world just a bit better and more silly.

"So, let our war cry resound from the ramparts: 'We're trying to be silly as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!' Let us gather together to actively pursue wit, silliness, and good humor whenever and wherever they will help."

Who, then, is King Prune? He is the man who wrote this modest bio when he inducted himself into the Prune Hall of Fame: "He's one of the most TERRIFIC guys who have ever in flesh and blood trod the face of this earth. A natural leader, he's funny with a GREAT natural wit about him, and silly with just the 'right' amount of stupidity (he's a real bonehead's bonehead.)

"Yet, despite all those gifts, and his role as King and Lord Chancellor of RPU, he still finds time to be a self-professed deity, a truly wonderful human being, a marvelous and manly husband, and a model family man.

"Because of all his unbelievable qualities, we are thus tremendously honored to have him grace this Hall of Fame, even though he created, and has made damn sure he is in, it. As you all know, his accomplishments are too fabulous and numerous to list here, so we won't."

King Prune is intent on keeping his identity secret, although his wife, Queen Prune, sometimes writes for the student newspaper, Deep Purple. When we asked him (by e-mail) who he was, he replied, on Royal Prune University letterhead, in prune-colored script:

I have never told anyone but my wife about this strange love affair I've had with RPU, not even my children. In truth, I guess, I must enjoy the anonymity. Also, it would seem a bit strange to tell 'the world' but not my entire family.

You might indicate that RPU is the creation of a middle-aged working academic with a great deal of respect for the academy and its purposes, but who can't resist taking a poke at it while pursuing the silliest of agendas: trying to save/change the world by niceness, wit, and silliness.

These days, only those whose faces are wrinkled like King Prune's would recall the exploits of the trepid (that's the opposite of intrepid) Pilot Officer Prune, of Britain's Royal Air Force. He was the bungling buffoon, whose escapades demonstrated to airmen in the Second World War precisely how NOT to behave, thereby saving many lives.

Squadron Leader (retired) David Berry, an authority on RAF history, says P/O Prune was created by an RAF artist, Leading Aircraftsman Bill Hooper, adding "He was a very familiar character. I didn't join the Royal Air Force until 1951 but Prune was still 'alive and well' then." David's Web site (http://www.keyhambooks.freeserve.co.uk) describes David as an author, freelance writer and book publisher.

Here's some interesting information about prunes... er, sorry, dried plums... mostly from the California Prune Board's (before it changed its name) Web site. The Board now has a new home page at http://www.prunes.org/ (Seems they forgot to change their Web address!)

• In 1856, during the Gold Rush, brothers Louis and Pierre Pellier took cuttings of La Petite d'Agen prune plum from France to California. Grafted on to the wild American plum, the trees produced the California prune. The French word for plum tree was prunier, so Americans called the newly-created fruit prunes.
• In 1905, rising labor costs in California led to one grower teaching monkeys to harvest prune plums. He took 500 monkeys to the Santa Clara Valley from Panama to pick prunes, and formed them into gangs of 50, with a human foreman in charge of each crew. Unfortunately for him, the monkeys ate the fruit as fast as they could pick them, with nothing left over for the grower.
• These days, even without the monkeys, California produces 70% of the world's prunes and 99% of the prunes grown in the United States. If all the prunes grown in California last year were laid end-to-end, they would wrap around the world 70 times. In 1988, Yuba City held its first California Prune Festival, which has become an annual event, in which 30,000 visitors learn about the prune industry and taste Prune Chili and Prune Ice Cream.
• In Japan, the prune is valued for its high potassium content. Prune extract (a thick prune concentrate) is sold by door-to-door saleswomen and consumed by the teaspoonful to ensure good health. Finland and France have the highest per capita prune consumption. In those countries, cooks use prunes in pork and duck dishes, and as a natural sweetener.
• Dried plums contain about 30 percent moisture, which is far more than the old-fashioned ones that were dry and hard. In fact, the Board claims that because of this extra moisture the fruit is now soft and tender, with fewer wrinkles.
• Prunes contain antioxidants that may play a role in helping to prevent certain types of cancers and heart disease. They're fat-, cholesterol- and sodium-free, a source of dietary fibre and contain vitamin A, potassium, copper, magnesium and iron. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Center on Aging at Tufts University claim prunes may help slow the aging process in both the body and the brain.

Here are a few ideas for prune dishes:

• Mix diced prunes with cream cheese to spread on a plain bagel. Make it into a sandwich by adding lettuce and a slice or two of smoked turkey.
• For a hearty snack, roll a slice of smoked ham, prunes, lettuce and grated cheddar cheese into a tortilla.
• Toss a few prunes into a salad of tossed greens, rice or pasta.
• Dip prunes into melted chocolate and place them on waxed paper to set. Refrigerated, they can be eaten like lollies (sweets, candy).

It may be some time before all the world's prune lovers call themselves dried plum lovers. Florence Fabricant reported in the New York Times that the California Dried Plum Board, as part of its $10m. name-change campaign, flew chefs Gary Danko and Joanne Weir from California to New York to cook a meal highlighting prunes. Hors d'oeuvres of the star ingredient, stuffed with foie gras or duck rillettes, were paraded around the room as Joanne demonstrated a frisee salad with fennel oil and Manchego cheese.

"I'm taking a few of the dried prunes," she said, then quickly recovered. "I mean, dried plums." Oops!

FOOTNOTE. There's a Prune Restaurant in New York. Will it eventually become Dried Plum Restaurant?

2004 UPDATE: Sadly, King Prune seems to have abdicated since this story was first posted three years ago. His hilarious website has disappeared into cyberspace. More's the pity!