Quinces: Growing and Cooking

The quince has always had a special place among the fruits of Europe. The ancient Greeks called it the ‘golden apple’, the Romans the ‘honey apple’. And it was most likely a quince, not an apple, that Eve plucked from the tree in the Garden of Eden. This book describes both the cultivation, the history and the cooking of quinces. Useful sections set out how to choose the variety best suited to your garden, to plant the trees and to maintain them in good health; there is a sketch of the glorious history of the fruit in cookery of past ages; there are some excellent recipes for savoury dishes that depend on the quince for that special flavour, and for all those sweet dishes that bring out the unique qualities of the fruit. The authors ensure that the reader can keep their harvest in the proper manner and they spend much time describing those special quince confections such as quince preserve and quince ‘cheese’ (or membrillo as it is known to the Spanish). We tend to forget that the first marmalades were made from quinces and that before we had easy access to citrus fruit, the quince was perhaps the most flavourful and aromatic product of the orchard known to our forebears. Books about quince cookery are rare (and mostly out of print). Yet people with a quince tree (or trees) in their garden will often have more fruit than they can cope with in the small number of recipes they have to hand.