Effects of ripening on microstructure and texture of “Ameixa d’Elvas” candied plums

The plums used to produce a traditional candied product, “Ameixa d’Elvas”, were obtained from two orchards, Vila Viçosa (VV) and Cano (CA). These orchards were selected because the fruits were behaving differently: (1) The day of harvesting for candying, established by the total soluble solids and titratable acidity, was one week earlier in VV; (2) VV yielded candied plums with good texture properties whereas CA gave poor processed fruits. In order to understand the origin of these differences, fruits from both orchards were harvested on the day established as the harvesting day for VV (day 1) and for CA (day 8). Comparable texture properties were obtained in firmness, rigidity and deformation work between the VV fresh plums harvested on day 1 and the CA plums harvested on day 8 but these were lower in CA when the flesh was analysed separately, in accordance with the activities of pectin methyl esterase (PME), polygalacturonase (PG) and cellulase (Cel). The increase of the intercellular area of parenchyma cells and the decrease in cell area caused by boiling, which resulted in a pronounced loss of textural properties, were partially recovered after the immersion of the fruits in sucrose syrup. The CA plums harvested on day 8 had a more pronounced degradation with boiling and lower recovery of cell shape, size and textural characteristics than had those of VV harvested on day 1. Upon candying, similar properties were observed for the fruits harvested on the same day: good candied products were observed for VV and CA fruits harvested on day 1 and poor candied products were observed for VV and CA fruits harvested on day 8. This work shows that the characteristics of the flesh of the fresh fruits are key parameters in defining the textural properties of the candied plum. The establishment of the harvesting moment for candying should take into account the changes that occur in the flesh of the plums during ripening.