Adventure 14 cont.: Meddling with Medlars (10.11.13)

Okay, so I promised to tell you a bit more about the curious fruit, the medlar, aptly nicknamed in the Middle Ages as the Cat's Arse. Supposedly brought over to England by the Romans, they are originally native to the Middle East and are commonly found in Turkey as well. You can find this unusual fruit in medieval and early modern English literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare.

This white top writeth myne olde yeris;
Myn herte is mowled also as myne heris - 
But if I fare as dooth an open-ers.
That ilke fruyt is ever lenger the wers.
Til it be roten in mullok or in stree.
We olde men, I drede, so fare we:
Til we be roten. Kan we nat be rype.

- Geoffrey Chaucer 'The Reeve's Tale'

So will he sit under a medlar tree
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone
O Romeo that she were that she were
An open-arse and thou a pop-rin pear

- Shakespeare 'Romeo and Juliet'

As you can see their odd shape (reminiscent of a certain part of the anatomy which made them a popular feature of bawdy early modern literature) and the need to rot is well documented!

They tend to like warm climates and when found in the UK, tend to be found in this part of the country as we have our own little micro climate which makes it a few degrees warmer than the rest of the country. However, this is still not warm enough for the average medlar so they very rarely ripen here and so you have to finish the process off yourself. This is done by bletting, whereby you leave the fruit to semi rot. People often assume rotten fruit is bad for you and disgusting, but it is this bletting process which will make these fruit ready to eat. They contain tannic acid (you might remember that acorns have this too) which is not great for the liver, and this bletting process gets rid of it and makes the fruit sweet to eat.

I have big plans for my medlar collection (they are already changing from green to brown) - including eating them the traditional English way with cream and sugar and also making a small jar of medlar cheese which is a spicy winter chutney eaten at Christmas.

I will share the recipes and keep you informed of how I get on.