I’ve never been quite sure what to do with them. I have seen various recipes. But I still have never tried any of them.
Part of the problem is the fact they are like rocks. Little hard rocks. I know they’re supposed to be fruit, but they still seem like rocks to me.
I’m talking about quince. They look a bit like an apple or a pear. But they are hard. Hard enough to keep me from biting into one.
They start out as these lovely, early blooming, red flowers. They compliment the forsythia quite nicely, giving a red counterpart to the yellow. They then turn into green shrubs for the summer. But in the fall, watch out. They are dropping projectiles on your lawn, just waiting for you to run the lawn through the area one last time, so a rock hard projectile fruit can come flying out.
Other than the lawn mower, I haven’t come across much that seems good at cutting quince. Even the lawnmower doesn’t do a great job. And I’m thinking the jam might not turn out quite right if there are little shreds of grass clippings all through it. But the more I look into this fruit, the more interesting it becomes.
Quinces are apparently known for their aroma, flavour and tartness. The word marmalade actually comes from the Portuguese word for quince. But like a lot of things, there are a lot of different varieties and I have no idea which one I have. All I know is, they’re hard.
But there are a number of recipes for preparing these things. Although all of them seem to instruct you to cut up the fruit.
As I mentioned, the lawnmower seems best suited to this task, although it also throws them a fair distance. So step one, wash the grass clippings off the lawn mower. Step two, build something to catch the quince pieces as they go flying. Then you have to cook them for a hour or better.
I’m still stuck on step two. Those things really fly well when you hit them just right.
Although one of these days, I really am going to try to cook up the pieces.
