Prunus armeniaca (syn Armeniaca vulgaris), a fruit belonging to the rose family and closely related to the plum, peach, cherry, and almond. The apricot's original wild ancestor has long since vanished, but it is generally accepted that its home was in, or mainly in, China, and that it was the Chinese who first cultivated the fruit, before 2000 bc. Laufer (1919) gave a plausible account of its spread westwards by silk dealers, which resulted in its reaching Iran (where, significantly, it had only a descriptive name, zard-alu, meaning ‘yellow plum’) in the 2nd or 1st centuries bc, and Greece and Rome in the 1st century ad.
The Greeks, wrongly thinking that the fruit originated in Armenia, called it ‘Armenian plum’; hence Armeniaca in the botanical name. The Romans, impressed by its early ripening, named it praecocium, meaning precocious. From this derives the name ‘apricot’.
The fruit is now widely grown in the warmer temperate parts of the world. The main regions of cultivation are: a band stretching from Turkey through Iran and the Himalayas to China and Japan; S. Europe and N. Africa; S. Africa; Australia; and California. There are many varieties differing in size, colour, and flavour. The diversity found in the great apricot belt from Turkey to Turkestan is astounding: white, black, grey, and pink apricots, from pea to peach sized, with flavours equally varied. In the Near East white apricots are common, with pale skin and pink blush. Their translucent flesh resembles that of a white peach, and is of surpassing delicacy and sweetness.
A fresh apricot is ranked high among fruits, as is evident from the praise of the connoisseur Leclerc (1925), who wrote of ‘Le parfum très pénétrant de l'abricot, sa saveur balsamique et douce dont on ne retrouve l’équivalent dans aucun autre fruit.’ He thought the flesh of the apricot combined in a unique way the subtle and disturbing fragrances of the Orient with the robust and straightforward smells of the French countryside.
The apricot certainly possesses a potent sensory appeal. In one of his books, John Ruskin described it as ‘shining in a sweet brightness of golden velvet’. But appearances can be deceptive. Apricots can acquire their orange colour before they are fully ripe and before their superb flavour has developed. Fruits picked in this state, for commercial purposes, will never taste as they should.
Hence the efforts made in Britain, from the 16th century onwards—King Henry VIII's gardener brought the apricot to England from Italy in 1542—to grow the fruit there, in spite of the unpropitious climate.
However, it was only in the 18th century that real success was achieved, notably by Lord Anson at Moor Park in Hertfordshire; the variety called Moor Park (or Moorpark) became famous in other European countries and is still grown. But the vast majority of apricots sold in the UK are imported, and despite the rapidity of modern transport these cannot match in flavour a fully ripe fruit picked from the tree in, say, N. Africa or California.
The apricot reached Virginia in N. America early in the 18th century, but the climate of the eastern states is not fully suitable. The Spaniards had earlier taken the fruit to Mexico. It was from there that its cultivation spread to California during the 18th century; and that is the state where it has since been principally grown. California's classic variety, the Blenheim, is lusciously sweet and perfumed. In California's golden age of the apricot, between the wars, flourishing groves of Blenheim made the Santa Clara Valley (surrounding San Jose, south of San Francisco) the world's leading area of production. Unhappily, the development ofz‘Silicon Valley’ caused most of the growers to move to the east, on less suitable land, where inferior varieties have come to be dominant.
The consumption of freshly picked apricots out of hand is a well-known pleasure, but most apricots are fated to be dried or otherwise processed. Dried apricots are one of the best of dried fruits and at their best if they have been sun dried. Fully ripe fruits are used, so they have the real apricot flavour.
The dried apricots from Hunza are small and unprepossessing, but have a notable reputation, since the inhabitants of Hunza enjoy remarkable health and longevity, both attributed in part to this fruit. (Apricots are among the more nutritious fruits, and are particularly rich in carotene.)
Apricots are usually treated with sulphur dioxide, a preservative, before being sun dried. Apricots which have not been so treated are darker in colour, with a caramelized, almost figlike, flavour.
Turkey and Syria produce the so-called ‘apricot leather’, dried apricot flesh in the form of thin sheets, which the cook melts down for use; these have a highly concentrated flavour (see fruit pastes, cheeses, butters). Meebos is an unusual S. African conserve. Ripe but firm apricots are brined, then stoned and pressed flat, salted, and part dried in the sun over several days. The resultant sheets are stored in jars with layers of sugar between them and on top, and will keep for months.
In China, from at least the 7th century ad onwards, apricots were preserved not only by drying, but also by salting and even smoking. The black smoked apricots of Hupei were famous, and apricots in general were greatly esteemed as a food, being considered good for the heart.
Apricot jam, made from fresh or dried fruit, is not only a good spread but also an important ingredient for the confectioner. It is used as a sweet adhesive in cakes such as Sachertorte; and in diluted form as the apricot glaze which ‘finishes’ many confections.
In Middle Eastern cookery apricots are also used in sweetmeats, for example stoned and stuffed with almonds or almond paste, the two flavours of the related fruits complementing each other to perfection. But apricots are used in savoury dishes too, to give a ‘sweet-and-sour’ effect. The fruit blends particularly well with lamb, as in the Arab mishmishiya (which might be translated as ‘apricotery’ and goes back to the 13th century). It is also met in pilaf dishes of C. Asia and Iran.
Apricot kernels are similar to almonds and, like almonds, contain small amounts of prussic acid which is destroyed by roasting them. They are used in making apricot brandies and liqueurs; and the Italian amaretti di Saronno (see macaroons) owe some of their flavour and texture to them.
Other species and hybrids are noteworthy. The Chinese, and later the Japanese, have cultivated an apricot of a different species, P. mume (now Armeniaca mume), commonly known in the West as ‘Japanese flowering apricot’, although it is of Chinese origin, and often misdescribed as a type of plum. See umeboshi.
Some apricots are dark in colour, for example, the ‘black apricot’ of N. India, Armeniaca × dasycarpa, which looks like a purplish-black plum but has a true apricot flavour.
A few plum-apricot hybrids with velvety purple skin, scarlet flesh, and an apricot aroma have been developed recently in California, bearing names like plumcot and aprium.
‘San Domingo apricot’ and ‘South American apricot’ are not apricots but other names for the mamee.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Leclerc, Henri (1925), Les Fruits de France, Paris.
