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labruscagrape - Re: [OFEX] Elderberry, plus quince and medlar

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Subject: Ontario Fruit Explorers

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  • From: "Thomas Olenio" <tolenio@sentex.net>
  • To: "Ontario Fruit Explorers" <labruscagrape@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [OFEX] Elderberry, plus quince and medlar
  • Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:24:27 -0400

On Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:04:46 -0400, Biz Storms <biz.storms@sympatico.ca> wrote:

It's nice to know that the quince can grow in our climate zones.


Hi Biz,

The ancients used quince as a rootstock. Columella (Roman around 75AD) wrote about how a quince rootstock improved the flavor of apples grafted to them.

Pliny wrote this about quinces. Here he talks about rootsock influence on the tast of quince (eaten raw);

===
HAP. XI.

Of the Quince.

Next to Pine apples, for big and large, are the Quinces, which we call Cotonea, the Greeks Cydonea, because they were first brought out of Candie.28 So heavie and massie they be, that they bend the boughs to the ground as they hang upon the tree, and will not suffer their mother to grow.

Many kinds there be of Quinces, to wit, Chrysomela, of a colour inclining to gold, & divided by certain cut lines. Secondly, there be the Quinces of our owne country, and so called:29 these be whiter, & of an excellent smell. They also that come out of the realm of Naples, be highly esteemed. Now there be a smaller sort of the same kind called Struthea [i. the Peare-quince] & those doe cast a more odoriferous smell: late they be ere they come to ripenesse or perfection; whereas contrariwise the greene Quinces called Mustea, be as hastie and soone melow. Now if a man doe graffe the great Quinces upon the Struthea, the tree will bring foorth a kind of Quinces by themselves called Mulviana; and these are the Quinces alone of all other that may be eaten raw. In summe, all the sort of these are come now adaies to be entertained within the waiting or presence chamber of our great personages, where men give attendance to salute them as they come forth every morning; and in bed-chambers also they are to garnish the images standing about the beds heads and sides.

There are besides small wild Quinces, next to the Peare-quince Struthea, for pleasant and odoriferous smell; and they grow commonly in hedge-rowes.
===

tom


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