h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Prunes Are Good - A47698140
Author: minorvogonpoet - U3099090

This is probably going to be my entry for the latest Stretcher challenge.

I'd be grateful for comments.

Very good!

I'm not sure, though, if the title is entirely appropriate.

Can you please use the code é rather than typing in the é character, as it works with more browsers, such as the old version of Mozilla.

Pruneaux d'Agen are really sold throughout France. At least I've known of them all my life, and I'm from the other end of the country.

Thanks, Gnomon.

I'm not sure if the title is supposed to end with a double letter, in which case I could change it to "The Prunes of Lot-et-Garonne"

Are the prunes the devils or the angels when you wrap them in bacon and call them "on horseback?"

Tasty stuff!

Thanks, toy box.

Actually, you can buy them in Waitrose!

Gnomon, I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by using the code & eacute. I just typed the accents in on my Word document and was rather surpried when they appeared in Guide ML.

Thanks Beatrice.

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to this. Does the devil have the best food as well as the best tunes?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/angelsonhorseback_84820.shtml

Prunes are the angels (though that recipe seems unduly complicated) and oysters the devils. I made them both for my Heaven and Helsinki Eurovision party a few years ago, but I can never remember which is which.

Sorry for the topic drift!

You just type é instead of the é character. It looks awful in the editor but miraculously comes out right in the Entry.

Nice one. I've never quite understood the difference between plums and prunes, but then I'm not sure about the difference we make in German, either. Usually, they're all plums.

In French, the fruit is called a pruneau and the dried version is a pruneau seche. In ENglish, the fruit is a plum, and the dried version is a prune.

We have Pflaumen and Zwetschgen, and I think Pflaumen are the large ones. But maybe it's just a regional thing.

Thanks Beatrice.

There was a delicious recipe in the Guardian for Chocolate chestnut fridge cake, using prunes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/nov/18/recipes.dessert

Oh, that brings back memories. School dinners. Rice pudding with prunes Took years to get over it and start to quite like them again. You make them sound

Nice one!

Hi mvp

I think you need to explain in the opening para that prunes are dried plums, perhaps

> Prunes are just dried plums and, when dry, they look like pieces of coal: black, dry and shrivelled. But prunes don’t have to be like that; they can be juicy, soft and sweet.

It might also be worth saying that plums come from the same family as nectarines, peaches, cherries etc, but contain less vitamin C than these fruits (Did you mention vit. C )

They also come in the top 10 fruits for anti-oxidant power.

As you say, they are rich in potassium, and this is essential for regulating heart function and for fluid balance in the body.

Japanese plums are widely used in Japanese medicine to treat digestuive disorders.

Thanks, BigAl.

I have added bits to this piece - more about plums, as you suggested, and more about the health benefits of prunes.

However, the challenge in the Stretcher competition demanded that every sentence closes with a word containing double letters. I don't think I can manage 'essential for regulating heart function and for fluid balance in the body'

This is what comes of going in for daft competitions!

Did it, by simply turning the sentence round!

Oh, right. I'm not really fully aware of these 'Stretcher' competitions, and I hadn't noticed that your Entry possessed that particular idiosyncracy