Medlar

March 28, 2021 9:41 AM

The forgotten medieval fruit with a vulgar name - "The polite, socially acceptable name by which it's currently known is the medlar. But for the best part of 900 years, the fruit was called the 'open-arse' – thought to be a reference to the appearance of its own large 'calyx' or bottom."
posted by kliuless (42 comments total)

I bought a big bag of these from Santa Monica farmer's market probably ten years ago with BIG expectations that they were going to be off the charts delicious. I wasn't impressed :( ultimately there are other fruits that you bring home not ready to eat and have to wait for till they look kinda nasty (hachiya persimmons, fresh dates, jujubes, passion fruit...) and I found all of them more delicious than medlars.

It's always fun to try a new fruit and I was stoked about these because how often do you get to try a fruit mentioned in Shakespeare but no longer widely available, but medlars did not make my "buy these ever again" list.
posted by potrzebie at 9:56 AM on March 28, 2021 [6 favorites]

Tiptree makes a medlar jelly that is pretty good. I recommend trying it if you get a chance. It has a nice cooked-fruit taste.

Some people get weird about medlars and persimmons needing to be bletted but wouldn't bat an eye at eating a banana in basically the same state. De gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose.
posted by jedicus at 9:58 AM on March 28, 2021 [6 favorites]

In Spanish they're called nisperos. Here in the Mediterranean they grow like crazy and you barely have to do any work for them to give a giant harvest. Right now the trees are heavy with green fruits that should be ripe next month, the first stone fruits of the season.

The only problem is that they're not very interesting to eat. Every year people have too many and try to give them away, and every year I have to find new ways to say "no thanks".
posted by fuzz at 10:18 AM on March 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

I mean, not exactly "forgotten" -- the article itself mentions Romeo & Juliet, which is pretty well known (although I guess the reference in the play isn't...)
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:37 AM on March 28, 2021

Very interesting. I looked up Medlar in Geoffrey Grigson's The Englishman's Flora; which exhaustively catalogues the vernacular names for flowering plants in the UK by county. I was hoping for variants on the bottom/arse theme but was disappointed. In contrast to Hawthorn and Rowan/MountainAsh which bracket medlar in the book and are known by 30-40 different names apiece, medlar just gives openaers and open-ers.
They are all members of the Order Rosales, along with blackthorn/sloe [another fruit in need of a good bletting], apple, pear, service [Sorbus torminalis, another olde fruit that bears investigation], cherry, damson, plum. peach, quince/membrillo, almond and all sorts of good things to eat. Rowan jelly is surprisingly good [cut with apple]; quince paste is called marmelada in Portuguese from which we get "marmelade".
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:07 PM on March 28, 2021 [7 favorites]

In German they are Mispeln and now I want to try medlar jelly and compare it to quince jelly.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:15 PM on March 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

The writer makes a great deal of how medlars are virtually unknown and you can't get hold of them, but you can certainly buy medlar trees. I found this website about 5 years ago when I was looking to buy a quince tree: Keepers Nursery, Quince and Medlar trees. 4 varieties.

Every year people have too many and try to give them away That doesn't necessarily mean the fruit is uninteresting. Maybe there's just too much abundance for a limited circle of acquaintance? We have two rampant triffidlike kiwi fruit vines, we can't give the fruit away any more either but I doubt sales kiwi fruit sales are down in the supermarkets.

We've tried to cut those vines down more than once. They'll tear the house down if they're not brought under control.
posted by glasseyes at 1:10 PM on March 28, 2021

In German they are Mispeln

No, it's just a different language, so words are spelled differently
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:16 PM on March 28, 2021 [50 favorites]

They sound like persimmons? And look a little like them? Then again the persimmons we eat today are of Asian origin, whereas Medlars are European. Unrelated fruits?
posted by Nelson at 2:30 PM on March 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

That doesn't necessarily mean the fruit is uninteresting

Yep. Every year my neighbourhood has the same problem with apricots, cherries, apples, plums, pears, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, grapes, etc.
posted by Mitheral at 2:35 PM on March 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

... persimmons, fresh dates, jujubes, ...

Wait. Jujubes aren't only a product of the Ferrara Candy Company?
posted by donpardo at 2:56 PM on March 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

In Spanish they're called nisperos.

In German they are Mispeln

So in Italy they used to be called “nespole”, but that’s now the name for the loquat Eriobotrya japonica, so that the fruit of Mespilus germanica (no, it wasn’t ever actually from Germany either...) now goes by the qualified “nespole comune” (on the rare occasion you ever find it, all mottled and bletted, at some small-town mercato, anymore)

They sound like persimmons? And look a little like them?

Erm, no: medlars (and loquats) are definitely much smaller than persimmons.

Then again the persimmons we eat today are of Asian origin, whereas Medlars are European. Unrelated fruits?

Mespilus and Eriobotrya are both Rosacea, but that’s already a distant relationship; persimmons are an Ebenacea, so, no, very unrelated.

it was called ‘open-arse’

In some German dialects it was even more graphically “Hundsärsch”.
posted by progosk at 3:06 PM on March 28, 2021 [6 favorites]

I plant them mainly because they develop a beautiful tree form, and for their lovely flowers. Also where I want a more medieval theme to a garden. Also it's always good to have more edible trees in the landscape (rather than just pretty).

They are odd looking fruit for sure, and so rare I hunt them out and photo them wherever.

Another different fruit is the otmast tree, aka Devon whitebeam, well behaves with small edible fruit, I saw one at Heligan in 2010, lovely small tree.
posted by unearthed at 3:10 PM on March 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have a medlar bush in my yard, and it's certainly not the fruit I look forward to all year: it's the flowers.
posted by acrasis at 3:18 PM on March 28, 2021

According to Wikipedia the candy originated from pâte de jujubes
posted by brujita at 6:22 PM on March 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have a medlar tree in my backyard. Monstrueuse de Evreinoff from Raintree Nursery, which carries a few different varieties.

One year, ONE FUCKING YEAR, I got a couple before the squirrels at them all. It tasted like a nice tart cinnamony applesauce.

Maybe this year I'll get any of them.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 7:27 PM on March 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

Wait. Jujubes aren't only a product of the Ferrara Candy Company?

I remember that candy! As an experiment, I bought a box at the movies, when I was a kid - definitely earns the classification of Once Is Too Much. Always thought their pronunciation was two syllables, rhyming with "two cubes." Wikipedia says they were originally flavored with jujube, (pronounced three syllables: "Ju Ju Bey") hence the name.
posted by Rash at 8:30 PM on March 28, 2021

So what is it that makes bletting count as rotting and not ripening? Like, if people don't just say "it gets alarmingly soft when it ripens" or "it smells funny when it ripens" or whatever, but actually go as far as saying "this straight-up counts as rotting and not ripening anymore," that's... do they mean that decomposition organisms are involved? Bacteria? Fungi? Or is it some other distinction?
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:30 PM on March 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

They don't even look like open arses
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:13 AM on March 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

My parents used to have a medlar tree in their garden and as young boys we used to sell the fruit to the local supermarket.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:20 AM on March 29, 2021

So what is it that makes bletting count as rotting and not ripening?

Ripening is a shifting, accommodating concept, according to cultural preference (i.e. intended use), and bletting slots into it conceptually as a specific kind of over-ripening, a secondary process with respect to the primary, usually on-plant, maturing process. (Though some might categorize bletting as occurring in the fruit necessarily post-harvest, persimmons definitely do blet on the tree, so that doesn’t really work as a defining criterium. Not sure whether medlars do or would, too.)

It seems to me the cut-off point from ripening to rotting is generally set/agreed when the concert of metabolic enzymes, bacteria and fungi at work during fermentation-ripening start producing an overabundance of unpalatable and/or potentially toxic compounds; so again, it’s empirical and post-hoc, not set in some conceptual stone.

(This is another rich discussion of the medlar etc. from a few years back.)
posted by progosk at 2:27 AM on March 29, 2021 [5 favorites]

Also, strictly speaking, an element of decomposition is actually considered integral to typical bletting: the cell wall breakdown, caused neither by other organisms, though, but by atmospheric conditions instead (i.e. frost).
posted by progosk at 2:33 AM on March 29, 2021

Heh, loved that anonymous medieval review quoted in the linked article:

"the medlar is not… worth a turd until it's ripe, and then it tastes like shit"
posted by fairmettle at 3:33 AM on March 29, 2021

The process is known as "bletting", a word made-up by a botanist who noticed there wasn't one in 1839.

Loved the article and the discussion here, and this sentence was especially splendid.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:11 AM on March 29, 2021

Of course, now I plan to use the word "bletting" at some point this week.
posted by blurker at 8:32 AM on March 29, 2021

"A stone in his belly, a stick in his arse
And yet hurble-purple is never the worse"

(different fruit)
posted by clew at 8:37 AM on March 29, 2021

In some German dialects it was even more graphically “Hundsärsch”.

That's interesting - where I grew up on the Somerset/Wiltshire border, I've heard people call them dog's arse.

They grow in hedges in a few places near where my parents live. They taste all right, but I find the texture unpleasant. Sort of sludgy.
posted by BlueNorther at 9:47 AM on March 29, 2021

The process is known as "bletting", a word made-up by a botanist who noticed there wasn't one in 1839.

Italian has a specific traditional word for it, ammezzire, ammezzimento, and though I haven’t traced its earliest use, it’s likely a fair bit older than that. (I can’t seem to locate a German term, though...)
posted by progosk at 1:05 PM on March 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

They remind me a bit of the American Pawpaw (wikipedia, how to eat, how to cook) - maybe just because of the pudding-like consistency, large seeds, large native range, and the fact that they were more popular/common in the past and are now somewhat neglected.
posted by flug at 2:00 PM on March 29, 2021

Okay, hold the phone: The Guardian had an article today on how to eat and enjoy seven of the world’s most difficult fruits, and medlars were featured.

As Lebo writes, you need to lay the fruit out on baking trays in the dark for several weeks until they turn brown. “When you can split them open with a firm squeeze, they’ve bletted.” Finding something to do with the bletted medlars is another thing entirely. “We tried ketchup and jam, and ice-cream or whatever, and none of them were any good,” says Lebo. Finally, she discovered that the best thing to do was to simply boil them. “The boiled water, the boiled medlar essence, is delicious,” she says. “I don’t know another fruit that’s really like that, where the extract you get from it is more delicious and interesting than the fruit itself. Then, of course, I turned that into jelly and syrup, and it’s fantastic.”

So, medlar extract looks like the way to go. I am curious to try this now.
posted by Pallas Athena at 5:53 PM on March 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

. . . .ultimately there are other fruits that you bring home not ready to eat and have to wait for till they look kinda nasty (hachiya persimmons, fresh dates, jujubes, passion fruit...)

I've got to respectfully disagree with some of those. I've never been able to keep fresh dates around long enough to find out what happens to them after two days, 'cause they're so fantastic when crisp it's impossible not to eat them all immediately. The old ones are good too, but only in the same way that raisins are good; I'd trade ten thousand raisins for a niece apple when not short on food.

I'm adding medlars to my list of fruits to seek out and try, right after paw-paws, which I still haven't been able to find, even though they supposedly grow here. Neat!
posted by eotvos at 6:59 PM on March 29, 2021

Re medlar extract - sounds similar to Quince to me. Nasty and astringent when raw, flowery, complex and rich after boiling (with sugar and water).

If I can find them (like paw-paws), I'll try em!
posted by esoteric things at 9:57 PM on March 29, 2021

There are so many fruits that aren’t necessarily forgotten but just don’t get to market. Often because they are fragile. Someone mentioned pawpaw and there are also mulberries, sour cherries (P. cerasus), Black Cherries (P. serotina), service berries (Amelanchier), wild plums etc. Really worth finding and trying.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:22 AM on March 30, 2021

"The boiled water, the boiled medlar essence, is delicious,” she says. “I don’t know another fruit that’s really like that, where the extract you get from it is more delicious and interesting than the fruit itself."

Agua de Níspero. Staple at grandma'ss house during the season.

I am excited by this forgotten fruit revival that is going on. I used to have to go hike in the hills to get some guamas, but last year I saw them in a small market. Look them up, they are also called ice-cream beans. Delicious.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:04 AM on March 30, 2021

I feel like tamarind goes in that category too: you can get a tasty drink out of it, but the fruit itself is really only good as an ingredient and not for eating plain.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:56 AM on March 30, 2021

I feel like a suitable contemporary sobriquet would be "goatse fruit"
posted by dgr8bob at 2:19 PM on March 30, 2021

sour cherries (P. cerasus)

I am in the UK and have never been able to find sour cherries here! They make the BEST cherry pie in the entire world and they’re just unobtainable here.

The Germans love their Sauerkirschen, so you can find jars of preserved ones at German shops. They’re essential for Black Forest cake. And at German music festivals there’s often a fruit wine stand which will have sour cherry wine. But fresh sour cherries in the UK... if anyone’s got a source, hook me up.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:36 PM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Can you get them frozen? I find for pie the frozen ones are just as good as fresh.

In any case, if you can find stores catering to Russian or Polish immigrants, I'd give them a try. They're my most reliable source in the US now that I've moved to a state that doesn't grow its own cherries. Here they almost always have them frozen, and very occasionally have them fresh in season. Conveniently, at least in Polish, they have an entirely different name — sour cherries are wiśnia, sweet ones are czereśnia — so you can be sure you're getting the right box out of the freezer even if you can't read the rest of the label.

Hi I grew up in Michigan and I miss real cherry pie a lot, hope this helps.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:34 PM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh man sour cherries. Meggyleves is practically the national dish of Hungary. Simple, sour, almost savory; it's an appetizer, not a dessert.
posted by Nelson at 8:17 PM on March 30, 2021

Sour cherry flavor is starting to become super popular. Not sure if it's generally flavored as a extract, but the cherries themselves are available seasonally at our fancy grocery store, not just the middle eastern one, where sour cherry juice, flavorings, and drinks are always available.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:24 AM on March 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

Sour cherries are really wonderful and I rarely see them fresh here in Minnesota. Luckily my neighbor has a tree so I get to pick my fill. Pro-tip, unfold a large paperclip and use the smaller end to pit them. And if you get a change try black cherries (P. Serotina). Also called rum cherries as they used to be used to flavor rum. They are very tart and bitter but make an amazing shrub or jam. The jam is perfect with cheese or anything where you’d use a bitter marmalade. They are really tiny - about the size of a blueberry so you don’t bother pitting them, just mash and run through a sieve.
posted by misterpatrick at 3:43 PM on March 31, 2021

I feel like tamarind goes in that category too: you can get a tasty drink out of it, but the fruit itself is really only good as an ingredient and not for eating plain.

Growing up when traveling down the coast we would always stop to buy a couple kilos of dried tamarinds to snack on the way to the beach. We would save the seeds for the slingshots. Must be a familiarity thing.
posted by Dr. Curare at 12:49 PM on April 2, 2021 [2 favorites]