Tip 174: Stone Fruit

Tip 174: Stone Fruit

Stone fruit are characterized by having a hard stone or pit surrounded by a outer fleshy part. They include apricots, mangoes, peaches, plums, nectarines, and cherries. Dates and olives can also be considered stone fruit. Stone fruit are also called drupes.

When describing varieties of stone fruit, you’ll often hear the term freestone and clingstone being used. Freestone refers to a fruit where the flesh is easy to remove and separate from the stone while clingstone refers to flesh that is much more difficult to separate from the pit.

Clingstone fruit are great for eating, but less suitable for canning and freezing due to the extra processing required to remove the flesh from the pit (for home and hobby preservers). Clingstone fruit often mature and ripen earlier than freestone fruit.

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