Everything about The Quince totally explained
The
Quince, or
Cydonia oblonga, is the sole member of the genus
Cydonia and native to warm-temperate southwest
Asia in the
Caucasus region. It is a small
deciduous tree, growing 5–8 m tall and 4–6 m wide, related to
apples and
pears, and like them has a
pome fruit, which is bright golden yellow when mature, pear-shaped, 7–12 cm long and 6–9 cm broad.
The immature fruit is green, with dense grey-white which mostly (but not all) rubs off before maturity in late
autumn when the fruit changes colour to yellow with hard flesh that's strongly perfumed. The
leaves are alternately arranged, simple, 6-11 cm long, with an entire margin and densely pubescent with fine white hairs. The
flowers, produced in spring after the leaves, are white or pink, 5 cm across, with five petals.
Quince is used as a food plant by the
larvae of some
Lepidoptera species including
Brown-tail,
Bucculatrix bechsteinella,
Bucculatrix pomifoliella,
Coleophora cerasivorella,
Coleophora malivorella,
Green Pug and
Winter Moth.
Four other species previously included in the genus
Cydonia are now treated in separate
genera. These are the Chinese Quince
Pseudocydonia sinensis, a native of China, and the three flowering quinces of eastern Asia in the genus
Chaenomeles. Another unrelated fruit, the
Bael, is sometimes called the "Bengal Quince".
Origins
The fruit was known to the
Akkadians, who called it
supurgillu (External Link
); Arabic سفرجل
safarjal = "quinces" (collective
plural). The modern name originated in the 14th century as a plural of
quoyn, via
Old French cooin from
Latin cotoneum malum /
cydonium malum, ultimately from
Greek κυδώνιον μήλον,
kydonion melon "Kydonian apple" (in the figurative sense, similar to
pomodoro -
Italian word for
tomato literally meaning "apple of gold",
pomme de terre - the
French word for
potato, literally meaning "apple of the ground", and the classical "golden apple"). The quince tree is native to
Iran,
Azerbaijan,
Georgia,
Turkey,
Albania,
Macedonia,
Greece, and
Bulgaria, but the Greeks
grafted from a superior strain from ancient
Kydonia (
Greek:
Κυδωνία), now
Khania, a port in
Crete, whence both the common and better-preserved genus name. The
Lydian name for the fruit was
kodu.
Cultivation of quince may have preceded apple culture, and many references translated to "apple", such as the fruit in
Song of Solomon, may have been to a quince. Among the ancient Greeks, the quince was a ritual offering at weddings, for it had come from the Levant with Aphrodite and remained sacred to her. Plutarch reports that a Greek bride would nibble a quince to perfume her kiss before entering the bridal chamber, "in order that the first greeting may not be disagreeable nor unpleasant" (
Roman Questions 3.65). It was a quince that
Paris awarded Aphrodite. It was for a golden quince that
Atalanta paused in her race. The Romans also used quinces; the Roman cookbook of
Apicius gives recipes for stewing quince with
honey, and even combining them, unexpectedly for us, with
leeks.
Pliny the Elder mentioned the one variety, Mulvian quince, that could be eaten raw.
Columella mentioned three, one of which, the "golden apple" that may have been the paradisal fruit in the
Garden of the Hesperides, has donated its name in Italian to the tomato,
pomodoro. This interesting fruit can also be eaten cooked or raw. They are an excellent source of
vitamin C.
Cultivation and uses
Quince is frost hardy and requires a cold period below 7 °C to flower properly. The tree is self fertile however yield can benefit from cross fertilization. The fruit can be left on the tree to ripen further which softens the fruit to the point where it can be eaten raw in warmer climates, but should be picked before the first frosts.
Most varieties of quince are too hard, astringent and sour to eat raw unless '
bletted' (softened by
frost and subsequent decay). They are used to make
jam,
jelly and quince
pudding, or they may be peeled, then roasted, baked or stewed. The flesh of the fruit turns red after a long cooking time. The very strong perfume means they can be added in small quantities to apple pies and jam to enhance the flavour. Adding a diced quince to applesauce will enhance the taste of the applesauce with the chunks of firmer tarter quince. The term "
marmalade", originally meaning a quince jam, derives from the
Portuguese word for this fruit
marmelo. The fruit, like so many others, can be used to make a type of
wine.
In
Iran and other parts of the
Middle East, the dried pits of the fruit are used to treat sore throat and to relieve cough. The pits are soaked in water; the viscous product is then drunk like cough medicine. It is commonly used for children, as it's alcohol free and 100% natural.
In
Europe, quinces are commonly grown in central and southern areas where the summers are sufficiently hot for the fruit to fully ripen. They are not grown in large amounts; typically one or two quince trees are grown in a mixed orchard with several apples and other fruit trees.
Charlemagne directed that quinces be planted in well-stocked orchards. Quinces are mentioned for the first time in an English text in the later 13th century, though cultivation in
England isn't very successful due to inadequate summer heat to ripen the fruit fully. They were also introduced to the New World, but have become rare in
North America due to their susceptibility to
fireblight disease caused by the
bacterium Erwinia amylovora. They are still widely grown in
Argentina,
Chile and
Uruguay. Almost all of the quinces in North American specialty markets come from Argentina. A variety of quince, which is grown in the Middle East, doesn't require cooking and is often eaten raw.
Quince juice from organic farming is available in
Germany (where quince is called "quitte") and its pleasant taste mixes well with other fruit juices. This is where the saying "A quince for you, a quince for me, quinces we'll eat," comes from (in the original High German, this is "eine Wildo für Sie, eine Wildo für Mei, ver zweine Wildoerein-Schafft weir eaten"). In the
Balkans and elsewhere quince
brandy is made.
In
Malta, a jam is made from the fruit (
ġamm ta' l-isfarġel). According to local tradition, a teaspoon of the jam dissolved in a cup of boiling water relieves intestinal discomfort. In
Lebanon, it's called
sfarjel and also used to make jam. In
Syria, quince is cooked in
pomegranate paste (dibs rouman) with shank meat and
kibbeh (a middle eastern meat pie with
burghul and mince meat) and is called
kibbeh safarjalieh. In
Iran, quince is called
beh (
ﺑﻪ) and is used raw or in stews and jam, and the seeds are used as a remedy for pneumonia and lung disease. In parts of
Afghanistan, the quince seeds are collected and boiled and then ingested to combat pneumonia.
In
Mexico,
Spain,
Argentina,
Chile, and
Uruguay the
membrillo, as the quince is called in
Spanish, is cooked into a reddish jello-like block or firm reddish paste known as
dulce de membrillo. It is then eaten in sandwiches and with cheese, traditionally
manchego cheese. The sweet and floral notes of
carne de membrillo (quince meat) contrast nicely with the tanginess of the cheese. Boiled quince is also popular in desserts such as the
murta con membrillo that combines
ugni molinae with quince.
Used as a
rootstock for
grafted plants, quince has the property of dwarfing the growth of
pears, of forcing them to produce more precociously, and relatively more fruit-bearing branches, instead of vegetative growth, and of accelerating the maturity of the fruit.
Cultural associations
- The film El Sol del Membrillo (Quince Tree of the Sun; Dream of Light) directed by Víctor Erice in 1992 is a documentary about a painter, Antonio López García, who spends September through December painting a quince tree in his garden.
- In an episode of The Simpsons, "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part 1", Mr. Burns and Waylon Smithers end up eating an entire box of chocolates in one sitting, leaving behind and discarding only one piece: the sour quince log.
- In Edward Lear's famous poem "The Owl and the Pussycat" the protagonists "dined on mince and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon".
- In Neal Asher's novel Gridlinked, a quince is a person who travels spontaneously using a device known as a runcible. This reference comes from the Edward Lear poem The Owl and the Pussycat.
- In the movie White Men Can't Jump, Rosie Perez's character Gloria Clemente was on Jeopardy!, and "quince" was the response to "Adam and Eve dined on this forbidden fruit".
- In the play Cataplana, an aging antagonist named Ari attacks his partner, Linda, over her claim that he'd a pear tree on his property—when in fact it was a quince.
- Paul Muldoon's poem, "Lunch with Pancho Villa" contains the line, "The quince tree I forgot to mention,"
- In the book, Ten Thousand Sorrows, by Elizabeth Kim, on page 5 line 7 Quince tea is drunk alongside a meal.
- In the musical Pippin, Catherine makes Pippin a quince pudding flambé. It is this extension of domesticity that's the final impetus for Pippin to leave her.
- In Plutarch's Lives, Solon is said to have decreed that "bride and bridegroom shall be shut into a chamber, and eat a quince together."
Further Information
Get more info on 'Quince'.
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