October Medlar, Nefle De October

Day 206: The French varietal name had me puzzled. For one thing, I couldn't say it even after listening to Google Translate's robot repeating it multiple times, but I was surprised to see that "Nefle" was actually in its dictionary. It means...yep, you guessed it..."medlar." This, therefore, is the "October Medlar," which gives a clue as to when the fruit is fully developed. Note that I say "developed" as opposed to "ready for use," because medlars must have begun to decompose before they are edible. They should be left on the tree until a few hard frosts have occurred, or until they begin to drop naturally. That said, the story behind these two photos is that the friend who has supplied me with medlars in the past will be moving away this summer. In order to "keep medlar love alive" (as another friend put it), I took cuttings from her tree, hoping to propagate it from slips and/or grafts, but obviously, that puts picking medlars pretty far down the road. As a backup, I began searching for an affordable tree, and I wasn't having much luck. Behind the scenes, yet another friend was searching as well, and to my great astonishment, came up with a nursery within reasonable driving distance which had two varieties: Nefle de October and Breda Giant, both as two-year old grafted plants in one-gallon pots, and at half the price of the foot-long bare-root cuttings I'd found on my own. I called the nursery early Saturday morning, and headed out to be on their doorstep when they opened. Nefle de October is a mid-sized fruit, as opposed to Breda Giant. The "giant" varieties tend to be less flavourful, so I picked out a 3.5' tall Nefle which will go in the ground later this week. I keep telling myself that at my age, it's probably pointless to hope for enough fruit for a batch of jelly before I'm too old to make it, but the planting geas comes strong upon me when spring is in the air, a call I must obey.

Let's Propagate!

Day 203: When a Parkie friend announced that she and her family were contemplating a move, I realized that I would no longer have access to medlars from her tree. I have not yet perfected the art of making medlar jelly, and don't know anyone else with a tree, so I asked her if I could take some slips. I did some research, came up with a couple of possible propagation methods, one of which involved grafting medlar scions onto either hawthorn or quince rootstock, both of which I have in the yard. It's been many, many years since I did a graft, so I reviewed the technique and went visiting with secateurs in hand. Two things were operating against me, though. The first was that they had pruned the tree of almost all the one-year wood. The second was that the new wood was all very small in diameter and would be difficult to graft. As a backup plan, I took cuttings, dipped them in rooting hormone and stuck them down in prepared medium. As anticipated, the grafting did not go well, but the slips appear to be in good shape. Time will tell if they hold their terminal leaves and form roots. In any event, it will be years before I can try making medlar jelly again.

Medlars, Phase Two

Day 67: I have now processed four small batches of medlars (10-13 at a time) into juice, and the house is scented with a strangely rose-like fragrance. Another two dozen will be ready to process over the next few days. I am determined to create a jelly from this fruit which uses commercial pectin, as opposed to boiling it down. The taste of medlar jelly is reminiscent of honey, citrus and rose combined. I am hoping that by using commercial pectin, it will not lose too much of its flavour. Striking the proper balance between juice, sugar and acid (lemon) is critical, and so far, I have been unable to find any helpful formulae or tests to determine the ratio. My kitchen has become a laboratory, albeit a deliciously aromatic one, and the one saving factor here is that even the mistakes are usable. If my jelly winds up as glaze for my Christmas ham, I won't mind a bit.

Meddling With Medlars

Day 64: Between us, the person who owns the medlar tree and I are going to figure out a way to make jelly which is neither too watery or too firm. The last batch I made set up like concrete and I had to add water and reheat each jar to get it to a spreadable consistency. The issue seems to lie in the pectin content of this peculiar fruit. Some growers claim it has none, while others say the exact opposite. In my digging in the deepest caverns of the Google mine, I discovered the reason for the disparity. Unripe medlars are high in pectin, but as they soften and become mushy, the pectin content drops dramatically. One recipe suggested adding a few hard medlars when boiling to extract the juice, or alternately, adding an apple if using only soft medlars. This year, I'm trying something different. I've already rendered one cup of juice from ten squishy fruits. The others are bletting on racks in a corner of my kitchen. Once they have begun to deteriorate (the proper point for processing, believe it or not), I will boil them in batches until I have enough juice to substitute into a recipe for apple jelly which uses commercial pectin. Medlar jelly is fragrant and delicious, and makes a wonderful glaze for ham.

Bletting Medlars

Day 38: It's medlar season! The first frosts came in hard, signalling that it was time to pick. The friend who owns the tree sent down a boxful which are destined to be Experiment #2 in making medlar jelly. You may recall that last year's product stiffened up to a taffy-like consistency and each jar required remelting with the addition of several tablespoons of water in order to make it spreadable. This year, I will be using liquid pectin rather than reducing the sweetened juice down, but since I have been unable to find a recipe using pectin, I'm having to guess at the ratio of juice to sugar. The worst that can happen is that I will wind up with several pints of medlar syrup. Medlar jelly has an unusual flavour, something like honey with a hint of persimmon. I used part of last year's batch for a delicious ham glaze. But first, these peculiar fruits have to be bletted, i.e., left in a cool corner of the kitchen until they begin to soften. This is actually the first stage of decomposition: medlars are only edible when they've begun to rot, and since for many people, the very idea is repellent, they are not commonly grown. That said, medlars are known to be one of the first fruits mankind cultivated for food.

The Medlar Project

Day 89: The principle is sound. The practice needs perfecting. I cooked the medlar jelly too long, and it set to the consistency of taffy. That said, further experimentation yielded a solution: add a little water to each jar, reheat in a pan of hot water as if de-crystallizing honey, and allow to cool. The jelly will reset because it contains no pectin other than what was in the fruit. Next year, I want to try adapting the recipe to use commercial pectin, but this year's medlar windfall produced four half-pints and four 4-ounce jars of very tasty garnet-coloured jelly. The flavour eludes description. There is a hint of lemony tartness, a slight similarity to persimmon, perhaps a pleasantly earthy overtone suspended in an exotic and aromatic honey. It tastes...well, it tastes like medlars, deliciously so. It would be excellent as a chutney with pork, as mint jelly goes with lamb. Despite the issue of the too-firm set, I would call the experiment a success. It just needs a bit of refining.

The Grand Experiment

Day 88: The Grand Experiment is under way, and if it tastes half as good as it smells, I will be quite pleased. A windfall of medlars yielded eight cups of liquid after being simmered gently for an hour per batch. This "juice" was then frozen to await final processing into jelly. Review of several pectinless recipes on YouTube suggested roughly one cup of sugar per cup of liquid. For the record, I decided to use seven cups of sugar. Now the boiling begins. Once the jelly has reached the "set" point (to be determined by dropping a bit of it on a chilled plate), I will jar it up. I couldn't resist sampling the sweetened juice, and I'm sure it's going to validate the time involved in bletting the fruit in a corner of my kitchen.

The Funkiest Fruit

Day 50: One of my personal mottoes is this: life is too short not to try new foods. I've eaten some strange things in my time (commercially-produced deep-fried caterpillar larvae, for example, which were actually quite good), and when the opportunity arises to sample something new, I'm nearly always game. When a friend first offered me medlars, I had no idea what she was talking about. I began researching the subject and found out that this unusual fruit may well have been one of the first cultivated as a foodstuff. It is a member of the Rose family and native to Europe, hence the scientific name Mespilus germanica. But the more I read, the more I wondered why anyone ever put one in their mouth in the first place. You see, medlars are only ready for use when they're rotten.

Unripe, the medlar is hard and tart, but when they've been hit by a few frosts or have lain on the ground for a while, the interior goes soft and mushy. They can also be gathered when unripe and brought to this stage by a process called bletting in which they are allowed to ferment/rot in storage. This photo shows some being bletted on my dehydrator racks. I've already processed one batch with the intention of making medlar jelly, a purportedly delicious and honey-like concoction. Medlars can also be eaten out of hand, so I tried a thoroughly squishy one while I was sorting these according to ripeness. The texture was similar to that of persimmon, and the flavour carried notes of both persimmon and apple with a hint of pear in the background. You just don't want to look at what you're eating.

To make a clear jelly, whole medlars should be gently simmered for 1-1.5 hours undisturbed. Simply add enough water to barely cover and bring to a boil. Cool slightly, and filter the processed medlars through a jelly bag. You'll be throwing away a lot of pulp, skin and large seeds, but don't let that deter you. What you want is the beautiful, ruby-coloured liquor dripping from your jelly bag over the next 12  hours. Measure the liquid, add 1/2 as much sugar (by volume), and cook down as you would any other non-pectin jelly. Use a cold plate to check for consistency, and when your jelly is done, jar it up and process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath. It will be a week or more before all my medlars have been processed, so you'll have to stay tuned for a report on the flavour of the jelly.