MEDLAR Trees

Large brown rosehips with cinnamon applesauce flavor

For something completely different, a fruit like no other! The flavor of this rose relative is a culinary collage of loquat, kumquat, fig and dates, with smoky, spicy overtones: a bit like apple-butter. Growing on deciduous 20-foot tall trees, weirdly wonderful-looking 1″ rust-rose fruits resemble russeted crabapples. The real weirdness comes at harvest time. After plucking the fruit, they require “bletting”, which means letting the fruits ripen until almost rotten-looking; brown, wrinkled, squishy and the inner pulp is brown and custard-like. Once bletted, eat the fruits immediately as the window of flavor opportunity is tiny! Splendid in chutney and jellies, or baked, roasted or stewed.