Funnily enough I stumbled upon such a tree while out for a walk in Surrey (UK) last November. Amazed to see a tree laden with fruit in winter, I loaded my rucksack thinking they were some kind of strange quince or something. It was only after a bit of internet research I discovered they were this weird medieval fruit called a Medlar. Out of curiosity I duly ‘bletted’ them and 4 or so weeks later turned them in to medlar-crumble slice. Would certainly agree they taste “like over-ripe dates mingled with lemons”. A lot of faff, but very delicious!
Wow, what a great article! And it links to one of my favorite botany papers every written: "The Medlar (Mespilus germanica, Rosaceae) from Antiquity to Obscurity" by John R. Baird and John W. Thieret,
Economic Botany Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1989), pp. 328-372 (45 pages)<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4255177" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/4255177</a><p><a href="https://sci-hub.do/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4255177" rel="nofollow">https://sci-hub.do/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4255177</a><p>I read this by chance when it came out, and for a long while couldn't figure out whether it was a parody or a real scientific article. The whole story seemed so vastly improbable: a vulgar fruit central to Shakespeare that we've mostly forgotten about today, unable to be eaten until it's been rotted in sawdust for a few months --- pull the other one! Anyway, if the BBC article whets your interest in the medlar, you should definitely check out the full article. It's a gem.
To be clear the ‘bletting’ process isn’t really rotting. There isn’t bacterial or fungal decomposition. Instead it is enzymes within the fruit which slowly react with and transform it. This isn’t wholly dissimilar from normal fruit ripening which can happen after the fruit has been picked.
Growing up in south of france, we had a few of theses tree ("Néflier") scattered around the village. I really loved the fruits as a kid, it was a true delicacy. We had to wait until the first freeze in december, and pick them off the ground after bletting. they are really sweet, with a touch of alcool, and one of the few fruit you can find in the wild during the winter.<p>Now the title is a little bit misleading, they fell out of favor, and not widely available commercially, but definetly not forgotten.
The same process takes place with astringent persimmons. Persimmons are even weirder because they have four types: pollination constant non-astringent (PCNA), pollination variant non-astringent (PVNA), pollination constant astringent (PCA), pollination variant astringent (PVA).<p>That means that some (very tasty) types of persimmon can be astringent or sweet when hard depending on whether they were pollinated, which is nearly impossible to tell just by looking at the fruit. The most well known categories of persimmons, at least in the US -- Fuyu types (PCNA) and Hachiya (PCA) -- are not pollination variant.
The article says the medlar is "musmula" in Persian. Maybe, but if you're Iranian, you'll more likely know it as "marmala". Reading this, this sounds oddly like "marmalade", which according to Wikipedia, comes from the Portuguese. But unlike the English version of marmalade, which is made from citrus, the original Portuguese is made from quince, an Asian fruit. My guess is this was actually initially made from marmala, and quince as only a variant. What a wonderful etymological chase through the name of a fruit.
Looks like Albanian muç-molla<p>They are very tasty, and can be eaten like a mini apple or pear. They taste like a combination between a pear and an apple. I used to have one in my home/garden.<p>...it is the baby of the rose family. This little tree produces small fruits in brown to rust color.<p>These fruits are similar to those of the wild rose, but larger in size.<p><a href="https://www.classlifestyle.com/news/39341/mucmolla-shqiptare-ka-efekte-shendetesore-te-medha-qe-ne-nuk-i-dinim/eng/" rel="nofollow">https://www.classlifestyle.com/news/39341/mucmolla-shqiptare...</a>
These are... nespole. I have a tree in my garden and we, in Italy, commonly eat them. A bit disappointed after the intriguing opening of the article.<p><a href="https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanica" rel="nofollow">https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanica</a>
Weird Fruit Explorer just did an episode on these if you want to see what they're like: <a href="https://youtu.be/IKZsMNfRiRE" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/IKZsMNfRiRE</a><p>The whole channel is fascinating. Probably my favorite niche YouTube channel. I had no idea just how many edible fruits are out there and how strange many of them are. Makes me want to quit my job and travel around the world finding thousands of weird fruits to eat.
I knew it would be the medlar before i clicked! Perhaps i spend too much time reading about rude fruit.<p>Anyway, it's a great little fruit, makes superb jelly and cheese (ie jelly with pulp, like a very thick jam). Somewhere between plum and date in flavour, perhaps.<p>I have a jar of my father's medlar cheese in the fridge, might go and pop a bit on some cheese ...
All these quotes form Jane Steward and they never link to her website. It's nice, makes the fruit look a bit more appetizing: <a href="https://eastgatelarder.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">https://eastgatelarder.co.uk/</a>
I always enjoyed that bit of Romeo and Juliet in high school...<p><pre><code> If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now 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! Oh, that she were
An open arse, and thou a poperin pear.</code></pre>
A few months ago I had a jar of medlar jelly shipped over from the UK via Amazon. It was not cheap but very tasty; the flavor reminded me a bit of quince jelly, another pretty rare item in the US. I'd like to have it again sometime, maybe for a special occasion.<p>The rest of my medieval foods bucket list includes purslane and sorrel. It looks like I'll have to grow both of them from seeds as I have no hope of buying them from a store anytime soon.
The equivlent in North America (in terms of being a once popular, now nearly forgotten fruit) is the Pawpaw: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba</a>
My wife grew up in Belgium and has often mentioned medlar as a wonderful and absurd delicacy. I never had it and she seemed to find it strange that I didn't know of it. A few days ago she excitedly sent me this article. Yesterday we found out her parents have just planted medlar in their garden.
In Dutch there's an expression 'zo rot als een mispel' (as rotten as a medlar). These days this means 'rotten to the core', so I was surprised to learn it originated from a fruit that supposedly tastes wonderful in this state. Although from the Dutch Wikipedia I gather it's more fermenting than rotting that's involved.
I was surprised to see that Google Photos is pretty good at searching for medlar photos I've taken. I knew I'd seen one recently(ish) but couldn't think how I'd figure out where.<p>So I did a search and it found two sets of photos:<p>1. the recent ones (presumably recognised directly from the fruit which are in close up, as there's no other indication of what they are) and<p>2. an earlier set I had forgotten about from six years ago in South Africa - it's hard to tell with that whether it recognised the whole tree (the fruit themselves are not that obvious) or it has read the tiny hand written label on the ground which says "medlar" (sideways for bonus points!)
Odd to call it forgotten; I've known about it for sometime, and it isn't just the fruit-nerd circles I run in. There was even an older tree growing in the yard of an immigrant Greek family in my old neighbourhood in Toronto, they made preserves from them.<p>There's all sorts of neat things in the same tribe as apples ("Maleae"); one of my favourites is the Amelanchier genus... Known as Saskatoons, Juneberries, Service berries, Shadbush, depending on where you are and which species you're looking at (though they're all very similar in flavour.) Make the best pie.<p>EDIT: this breakdown process described for medlars is also similar to some varieties of pears, which aren't really ripe "off the tree" but require chilling hours and then re-warming in order for the sugars to transform into something more edible.
There are a couple of these trees in my local park in London. I collect windfall fruit in the autumn. Nobody else seems to notice all the free fruit! I put them in a box in a closet for a month or so and then make jelly. It goes a really deep red colour and has a nice, unique flavour.
In this pic, it looks very similar to India's "Cheeku" (remove the crown and it's an exact match):<p><a href="https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/1600x900/p09bty8x.webp" rel="nofollow">https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/1600x900/p09bty8x.webp</a>
I got a batch of medlars from a farm this last winter! We ate the first few too soon but the rest were amazing, and very late into the winter when we dont really have fruit besides apples. I'd love for these to become mainstream again.
If you're in the UK/south-east, you can see a mature medlar tree in a corner of the tudor garden at Cressing Temple barns. Note that this is a working garden, so be careful about picking fruits!<p>There was once a beautiful medlar at the end of the driveway to a very popular farm shop in Brentwood. I used to ask permission to gather fruits, because no one in the shop knew what it was. One year I came there, and the tree was gone - cut down. Really sad.<p>Medlars make amazing jam!
We have a similar fruit in southern Italy. It's from the sorbus genus. It used to be consumed (almost) rotten during the months of December and January.
Fascinating read! I really wanted to try this until I got to this part.<p>A humorous research paper from 1989 gathered together some classic put-downs, including "At best, it is only one degree better than a rotten apple" – from a 19th Century gardening book – and "the medlar is not… worth a turd until it's ripe, and then it tastes like shit" – reportedly the opinion of an anonymous medieval author.
They have medlars at the Cloisters in NYC--at least, a few years ago ...<p><a href="https://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2008/11/14/rotten-ripe-the-medlar-goes-soft/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2008/11/14/rotte...</a>
Reminds me of a fruit I know as Chico Zapote: Inedible when unripe (feels like green bananas and not sweet), then edible for a day, then too sugary for its enjoyment a day later. When ripe/rotten is good in small quantities, but it feels so much like eating sugar that I can’t handle more than half of it.
Theres a medlar tree growing in Waterford city (near the Bishops palace) I know an old guy who picks the fruit from it and makes jam.
Out of curiosity we picked a couple once, left them for a long time and tried them. They were ok.
Medlar trees are not that hard to come by in the US -- I have a couple in my orchard -- one is really prolific and we make a fair amount of medlar jelly each year. I hadn't realized that medlars were not that well known!