The New Murrey and Blue blog

This extract is from https://gardenandhappy.com/medlar/ “….Great writers such as Shakespeare and Chaucer used medlars to convey the loss of womanly virtue. In The Honest Whore, Thomas Dekker wrote: “Women are like medlars, no sooner ripe but rotten”. Hmm, that bit about “no sooner ripe but rotten” is more likely to apply to the male of the species. As soon as that testosterone kicks in, whoah! Oh, but that’s OK, of course. Ask any man.

Medlar fruits were also used as an analogy to old age, or a rotten personality….” Charming. Rotten seems to be a favourite adjective in some circles. And, of course, only too typically medieval male! Women were too polite and conscious of their men’s fragile pride to liken them to anything rude but no doubt a few choice things always came to mind!

There is a recipe for medlar jam in my grandmother’s cooking book, complete with its French name, Confiture de Nèfles. Very superior. Only for the best tea tables! The very best tables, because the fruit is listed in Richard II’s book of feasts and recipes. And A Taste of History by Maggie Black informs us that the Romans were responsible for bringing the fruit to us here in Britain.

A few choice names were applied to the unfortunate medlar, none of them flattering, yet it’s delicious if treated properly. They aren’t much in evidence these days, but were once very widespread and popular, and before ripening look like rosehips. After ripening they resemble an equally ripe passion fruit. Our medieval forebears made full use of the fruits available to them, and medlars were ready from September to the end of October, along with another fruit that is no longer as plentiful as it once was, the quince.

Read more about it here https://gardenandhappy.com/medlar/, where you’ll find a recipe for medlar jelly, and here https://delishably.com/breakfast/How-to-make-medlar-jam for medlar jam. And if you fancy medlar cheese, go here https://www.historicfood.com/medlar%20cheese%20recipe.htm

And according to https://www.notquitenigella.com/2015/07/08/medlar-recipe/ you can make delicious medlar tarts! 🙄