My first experience of growing Medlars was when I worked in the museum garden of Annet House in Linlithgow in the mid 90’s. I’d never come across them before and was fascinated with their large white showy flowers in summer and then the odd looking fruits that appeared in autumn. In some years they also have good autumn colour and make good trees for smaller gardens, so they have a lot going for them. They are also remarkably hardy, I’ve them in a garden of my own with very similar exposed conditions to the nursery, possibly more so and the tree did very well. When we expanded the planting in the nursery garden orchard in 2018 I decided a medlar definitely had to be planted and it too has done very well. It flowers every year, has put on good growth every year despite being in one of the most exposed parts of the gardens and every year has a good crop of medlars. This year it had a very good crop (due to the very good summer I would think) so I have collected them all in and will experiment with cooking them but first they need to be bletted……….another fascinating thing about them, but first a wee bit of history about the medlar.
So what is bletting? Once the fruits are mature in late October
to November (up here anyway) they should be picked, ideally after a hard frost,
but lets be honest early hard frosts are a rare beast these days. Once picked
they should be stored somewhere cool for a few weeks to let them blet. Mine are
currently in the polytunnel, awaiting some cold weather, hmmmmm. This softening
process allows the starches and the bitter tannins and acids to convert to sugars.
This is an essential process to allow the fruit to be edible. I suppose when
you didn’t have much to eat and lived off the land and what nature produced in
the hedgerows, it was worth the effort and wait for the bletting to happen. Our
modern palette is destroyed with all the highly flavoured, over sweet, over salty
food we eat now a days. Anyway they will not look attractive when they have
bletted or blet? They are worth trying apparently, I am yet to experiment but I
will update you once they are ready, they can be eaten raw but are usually
turned into medlar jelly or medlar cheese and used in liqueurs, wines and
desserts, medlar gin…… I wonder? In old recipes it was paired with cream, wine
or spices and I have also seen recipes for tarts. I won’t have enough to try
every recipe but am tempted to make the medlar cheese to eat with well cheese,
we do love a piece of cheese. The flavor is sweet, tangy, and slightly spicy —
often described as a mix between applesauce, dates, and cinnamon, sounds good
so far with a soft thick custard like texture.
 |
| Medlars beginning to grow in late summer |
Medlars are also good for you, they are rich in vitamin C, very important during medieval winters when there was little in the way of fresh food to eat. The bark, leaves and fruit were also used in medicines for digestion.
.jpg) |
| Our medlar tree in the nursery gardens |
Medlars have also appeared in literature, most notably Chaucer (14th century) and Shakespeare (16th century). In Chaucer’s The Reeve’s Tale, he calls someone “ripe and rotyn as a medlar,” meaning overripe and ready to rot. The fruit’s need to decay before being eaten made it a perfect metaphor for moral or physical corruption. Shakespeare on the other hand uses it in a more baudy manner. In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio jokes:
“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.”
Here he’s teasing Romeo with a sexual pun — the “open-arse” medlar was a risqué
image in Elizabethan slang.
And in Measure for Measure, Lucio calls a woman a
“medlar,” meaning she’s past her prime.
In later literature D.H.
Lawrence revived the image in his poem Medlars and Sorb Apples,
contrasting their “rottenness” with the artificial perfection of modern life —
turning the symbol into one of natural truth and maturity rather than
shame.
“You do not die when you are dead,
You are not good when you are good.”
— D.H. Lawrence, Medlars and Sorb Apples
So, the medlar moved from being a mocked fruit to a metaphor
for natural honesty and acceptance of aging.
 |
| Medlars at the Weald & Downland Living Museum outside a timber-framed hall-house dating mainly from the early 15th century. Thats early 1400's! The home of an up and coming yeoman farmer. |
 |
| This year's medlar crop |
Steeped in history, easy to grow, and with stunning foliage, medlars are superb
trees to grow, offering you a supply of vitamin-rich fruit to see you through
the winter months.
In part two I will write up my experience of bletting and
cooking my medlars
#rural #countrylife #countryliving #cottagelife #antiquecottagescenes #interiors #scottishborders #independantretailer #smallbusiness #localbusiness #independantplantnursery #uniqueplantnursery #hardyscottishplants #scottishgarden #gardeningontheedge #scottishborders #lifestyleblog #gardenblog If you to see what's new and looking good at the nursery like our Facebook Find out more about the nursery here - our web site: www.quercusgardenplants.co.uk |
Comments
Post a Comment