One of my favourite things

I must confess I have a fascination for medlar trees. It all started one night when I walked around a certain town's public gardens with a garden club and someone commented in passing "that is a medlar tree". It was March and the cream coloured medlar fruit hang down on the tree stoicly waiting to ripen.

I remembered seeing a certain tv journalist-come-cook make medlar jelly and chutney with the leftover pulp. So I started to visit the medlar tree and researched when the fruit would be ripe.

According to my research the tree has delicate white flowers and some people grow the tree just for the flowers. It is also an ornamental tree shaped like an umbrella. It is belongs to the same family as roses, quinces, apples and pears. The fruit are golf ball size but if you cut it in half there is a six chambered hexagon shape that has a pip about the same size as an orange pip in it.

The medlar flower

Medlar fruit are rather unusual in that when they are ready to eat or cook the flesh inside the skin is pulpy and brown. It has the consistency of stewed apple. Some would call it rotted but the correct term is bletted. Bletted the flesh has an interesting flavour - lightly spicy, fruity but somehow musty. An acquired taste really. Unbletted fruit leave an astringent rather unpleasant taste on the tongue.

I approached the council watchman of the certain public gardens about taking some of the fruit. With his approval I picked some just as they were beginning to blet. I left them in a box until the whole fruit was brown and pulpy.

This is a ripe (bletted) medlar ready to eat or jellify.

Then I found recipes and made jelly and chutney. Both were a resounding success but I am keeping rather quiet about it because I don't want everyone visiting my medlar tree in the certain public gardens and knicking off with my medlars.