Monterrey Bay Master Gardeners
Winter 2010
Book Review
Sue Tarjan
Simply Quince
Barbara Ghazarian
2009
I made the acquaintance of Barbara Ghazarian and her new cookbook, Simply
Quince, last month at a talk she gave at the Live Oak Grange sponsored by the
California Rare Fruit Growers (). It is no exaggeration to say
that I was thrilled to attend because most people have no idea what a quince
is while I’ve loved the fruit of the quince since I was a child and found
everyone’s ignorance both mystifying and a bit, well, lonely. I was lucky to
be introduced to quince by my mother, an adventurous cook who owned many old
fashioned cookbooks, about the only way to reliably find quince recipes for
the last several decades, at least until Barbara’s book came along. Why do
you suppose that is? There are two major reasons: technological innovation
and the rise of fast food.
Technological innovation
Native to central and western Asia and cultivated there for millennia (the
original `golden apples of the sun’) and for centuries in Europe, the
quince used to be widely grown in the United States, too, despite being hard,
tart, astringent, and somewhat difficult and time consuming to process. It was
prized, in fact, not just because of its intoxicating aroma and the gorgeous
deep red color it acquires with cooking but because it is so extremely high
in pectin, a complex carbohydrate and soluble fiber found in the cell walls
of all land plants that combines with acid and sugar to form a gel. To
illustrate how intrinsic an ingredient was quince pectin to jams and jellies,
the term "marmalade," originally meaning a quince jam, derives from "marmelo,"
the Portuguese word for this fruit. Up until a few generations ago, home
canners used the pectin in quince to set their jelly. Now, most canners use
commercial powdered or liquid pectin (extracted mostly from apples and citrus
fruits).
Rise of fast food
To paraphrase Barbara Ghazarian, the quince is the quintessential slow
food. As I admitted in the last paragraph, much as I love this fruit,
converting quince into the luscious, lovely taste sensation of one’s dreams
can be a daunting task for the uninitiated. These days, who has the time or
inclination to wrestle food into submission when there are plenty of
restaurants and food manufacturers who’ve already done it for you? Let me be
quite frank: raw quinces are utterly inedible; they will make your mouth
pucker like it’s never puckered before. Moreover, quince are coated with an
unappealing fuzz, difficult to peel (Barbara recommends a potato peeler),
and challenging to cut-don’t even try to cut through the core. But her book
comes to the rescue by explaining how to prepare the fruit using the right
tools (very sharp knife, peach pitter, etc.) and proper techniques. Most
important, she provides plenty of motivation-her delectable recipes:
appetizers, salads, side dishes, stews, main courses, condiments, spreads,
preserves, and divine desserts. You can trust me on this one because, after
her talk, Barbara shared some of her quince delicacies with us, her
audience-yum! Yum?
Yes, yum. The aroma and flavor of quince has to be experienced to be
believed. No, it does not taste like apple or pear-it tastes like tropical
heaven. And here’s the other thing about quince that’s just so
amazing. Unlike any other fruit I can think of, apples and pears, for
example, both of which dissolve into mush as they cook, quince maintains its
shape (all that pectin, remember), becoming more and more succulent as it
cooks but still there-not only there but the most entrancing eye candy you
can imagine. As you cook it, it is magically transformed; in fact, the
longer you cook it, the more beautiful it becomes. You start out with a
yellowish, lumpy, furry, rock-hard object with sour, whitish flesh that
rapidly browns when exposed to air, yet you wind up with a visually stunning
culinary masterpiece that shimmers like the finest ruby. I’d say that
warrants tackling a learning curve, but don’t worry.
Simply Quince guarantees that your education will be worthwhile AND fun.
Simply Quince also provides some basic information on quince cultivation. The
quince tree, Cydonia oblonga, produces a pome fruit like the apple and pear
and our native toyon, all members of the rose family. The tree is small
(8-12 feet) and self pollinating, perfect for a backyard garden, needs only 200
to 300 chill hours, and blooms a bit later than apple or pear. The fruit are
ripe when they turn yellow and fragrant, usually in October in our area.
Some common varieties are ‘Champion’, ‘Orange’, ‘Pineapple’, and ‘Smyrna’.
Sometimes used as a rootstock for grafted pears, the quince has the property of
dwarfing the growth of the pear tree, forcing it to produce earlier with
relatively more fruit-bearing branches and hastening the maturity of the
fruit. By the way, don’t confuse the fruiting quince with the popular Japanese
flowering quince (Chaenomeles species).
There is a down side, unfortunately. Quince trees are susceptible to the
same pests and diseases that plague apples and pears and are particularly
prone to fire blight, a bacterial disease that only affects plants in the rose
family. To help prevent infection, plant in soil with good drainage, prune as
little as possible, and avoid high-nitrogen fertilizer. Sadly, I can attest
to their vulnerability from personal experience: the pineapple quince baby
I planted years back succumbed to fire blight within a year, but I’m tempted
to try again after Barbara’s inspirational talk. Just in case you’re
tempted, too, buy the book and check out this UC Integrated Pest Management
website for information on fire blight and how to cope with it:
Sue Tarjan, MG06
Gardening on the Edge, Winter 2010
Monterrey Bay Master Gardeners
http://www.montereybaymastergardeners.o rg/newsletters/GOTE137.pdf