Medlar

What it is

The medlar is Mespilus germanica, a small Rosaceae tree described by Linnaeus in 1753. Under a classification that merges Mespilus into Crataegus, the same plant is called Crataegus germanica. A second species, Mespilus canescens, was recorded in North America in 1990. The loquat, sometimes called the Chinese or Japanese medlar, is only distantly related.

The fruit is a pome with a large open calyx, and it looks like a small brown apple with a flat crown of sepals. In the past it was known under coarse English names that refer to that shape. Ripe fruit on the tree is hard, acidic and astringent, and it is not pleasant to eat until it has been softened.

Native range and early cultivation

The Wikipedia article places the true homeland of the tree in the southeastern Balkans, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Crimea, northern Iran and possibly Turkmenistan. It also grows along the Black Sea coasts of Bulgaria and Turkey, and fossils have been found in Italy and Germany. It is rare in southern Europe and naturalised in some woods in southeast England.

The tree may have been cultivated for about 3,000 years. Strabo mentions it, and it reached Greece around 700 BCE and Rome around 200 BCE. It was important in Roman and medieval times, and by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries other fruits had largely replaced it in gardens and kitchens.

Bletting

Bletting is the process that makes medlars edible. Frost or natural storage softens the fruit, lowers its tannins and acids, raises its sugar, and darkens and wrinkles the skin. The softened flesh has the texture and look of apple sauce, which can make it appear spoiled to someone who has not seen it before. The Wikipedia article notes that pomes are among the few fruits that can be eaten in winter.

Because the process depends on softening rather than heat, bletting is a storage stage rather than a fixed time. The article gives no duration, so this page gives none.

Uses

Bletted fruit is eaten raw, sometimes with sugar and cream, or made into medlar jelly. Medlar cheese, a curd of pulp, eggs and butter that resembles lemon curd, is another documented preparation. Unripe fruit is high in tannin and has been used for tanning and for clarifying wine. Saarland in Germany makes a schnapps from the fruit.

Research has explored the kernel oil as a biodiesel source, leaf-derived activated carbon for removing heavy metals and silver nanoparticles with antibacterial properties. These are laboratory studies described in the article, not food uses.

Limits of the sources

The sources give no yields, no sugar or acid measurements for bletted fruit, no safe storage time and no recipe quantities. The medlar cheese and jelly are named but not quantified. This page gives none of those figures.