To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [NAFEX] medlars
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:23:33 -0500
Like others on this thread, I have found medlars more trouble than they
are worth for eating out of hand. I live in Maryland but have a hobby
orchard up near Biglerville, PA. This past year I went up a week or two
before Christmas with wife and one son and his family (wife and
daughter) to get trees from my Christmas tree patch. While there, I
noticed that one of my two small medlars (a Nottingham) had a very heavy
crop, still on the leafless tree. There had been a freeze early in the
month but unseasonably warm weather ever since. The fruit was soft,
apparently "bletted" in situ. I thought they tasted good, my son said
they tasted like rotten applesauce and the women said they were too ugly
and refused to taste. Anyway I picked about half a bucket, a fraction
of the crop, to see what could be done with them.
There is no obvious way to separate the seed & skins from the sauce, so
I just dumped them all into a big pot with a cup of water to keep them
from burning at the start and broutght them to a boil with occasional
stirring and mashing with a large spoon. After about 15 minutes
boiling, I let it cool some, filtered it through a couple of layers of
cheesecloth, added sugar to the filtrate and boiled it down to the
gelling point. The yield was a pint of what looked like apple jelly but
with a distinct and very pleasant taste.