For this post I am going to break my rule of literary chronology, leaving
the early 18th century novel for the time being in order to revisit
the late 16th century and an author who has featured frequently in
this blog, namely Mr William Shakespeare.
And the cause of this literary rewind is the quince, the strange,
knobbly pear-like fruit which, as the Observer
food writer Nigel Slater says, “can’t be eaten raw” and is “a devil to peel”.[1] We have a quince tree in the garden and about
a month ago my landlady challenged me to find some literary/culinary uses for
the plethora of fruit that ripen and rot very quickly if not picked and made
good use of; I like a challenge, so the research began.
Quinces come from the same family as apples and pears. They are thought to have originated in parts
of Asia, including Armenia, Georgia, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, and were subsequently
introduced to parts of the Middle East and eastern and central Europe,
including Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece.
The quince’s early arrival in the countries of the Middle East has led
to speculation that references to fruit in the Bible which have often been
translated as “apple” may in fact be references to quince: examples include The Song of Solomon 2:3 “As an apple
tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men” and most
famously the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 3 with
which the snake tempts Eve, and Eve then seduces Adam.[2] Though were the snake to have tempted Eve
with a quince, we have to assume he would have cooked it first as it’s
impossible to believe that Eve would have succumbed to the sour inedible raw
fruit! Once cooked though, with the
addition of sugar or honey, the quince softens and becomes far more
appetising.
