North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[rob hamilton <lostman_amiga@yahoo.com>]

You have very good idea for exploration Lon!!

Though I have not tried the Chinese quince (Pseudocydonia sinensis) in bletting, I think this would be a good candidate. Upon your own suggestion I cooked some down with some sugar and got a very good cranberry like sauce. It was a bright orange with a mashed potatoe consistancy - not only edible, but quite tasty. I also have made a nice wine with it. The liquid turns a dark blood red during fermentation and give full bodied mildly astringent wine that me an my friends like.  I have recently found so research on the high antiviral/antibacteral qualities of the fruit if anyone wants to see - but I digress.

I imagine these large fruits could be bletted as well - and with mango size of these fruits, just a few would suit most needs.

Of course there is the other quinces as well. The Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) does well for me. The taste is like
 lemon with an hard apple texture, but I wonder if bletting would lower the acid.  The regular Quince (Cydonia) that most people are familiar with does suffers from fireblight down here of what I am told.  I still want to try though.
Also, I have had some very nice Cornelian cherry (Cornus Mas) that were bletted. There wasent much flesh around the seed, but the taste mildly sweet wine favor, yet it was very different than anything I had tried before.

On a related topic...
I would like to here some different methods of bletting from people. I know a number of my Medlars sour or even moldy before finishing. I can imaging fleshy fruits like the Quinces would have and even worse problem. Does anyone prep the fruits first?  ...a 3% bleach or distilled vinegar wash? Do they do better on sunlight or in dark?



"Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com> wrote:
>   For the uninitiated, bletting is a process of after-ripening usually 
> applied to medlar fruits.  In their fresh picked state, medlars are 
> hard, acid, and astringent.  When bletted, the flesh becomes soft, dark 
> brown, and loses the acid and astringency, making the fruit quite nice 
> to eat.   Bletting also works with Sorbus domestica, as has been 
> mentioned here in other threads.
>  I bring it up because I have been collecting species pears for seed.  
> Things like P. betulafolia and P. calleryana.  They are hardly larger 
> than a pea, and are quite acid and astringent when picked,  But I find 
> that, like medlars, they lose most of their acid and astringency and 
> become soft and pleasant when bletted.  P. betulafolia keeps some acid, 
> while losing all astringency, to become spicy and surprisingly 
> pleasant.
>  Perhaps it might be worth some exploring to
>  try bletting other pome 
> fruits that are ordinarily inedible to see if there aren't more types 
> that blet well.  We may be overlooking a lot of fruits that are not 
> only edible but have exotic flavors only when bletted.  Various 
> hawthorn and species pear fruits would be my first thought.  Any other 
> possibles any of you might have tried?
> -Lon Rombough
> Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at 
> http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association 
> "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
> For even more grape lessons, go to  http://www.grapeschool.com
> For all other things grape,   http://www.vitisearch.com
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