Cydonia oblonga
Rosaceae family
Throughout the US and Canada in zones 5–8
QUINCE IS HARD TO LOVE, and that’s because it’s not easy to eat. Unlike an apple or pear, you can’t simply pluck one from a tree and sink your teeth right in; its flesh is bitter as all get-out, and its skin is flocked and fuzzy. There’s peeling involved, plus cooking, plus the addition of sugar. Lots of sugar.
For all the fuss they require, quinces beguile, offering aromatic floral and honey notes. And their resilient off-white flesh transforms once exposed to heat, developing a deep rosy blush and a supple texture. Once you fall for quince, you’ll seek them with a passion.
There’s an old story in the Bible about a lady named Eve tempting some guy with an apple. Scholars speculate the fated fruit was actually a quince, though I personally doubt it.
Eve: Try this, it’s awesome.
Adam: What the hell am I supposed to do with that thing?
Quince is native to western Asia, and it was cultivated earlier than apples in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). It developed to thrive in dry, hot climates and acidic soil, though most of the trees growing in North America were selected to withstand cooler, wetter conditions. It is possible for some varieties of quince to be juicy and palatable right from the branch in subtropical climates, but such examples are needles in haystacks. You must first find a quince tree, period. Quince production in America exists but is uncommon enough that the USDA Agricultural Statistics Service does not track it.
Commercial pectin may be partly to account for quince’s rarity in America. Early Americans embraced quince as a useful addition in jams and jellies; it’s high in pectin and helps preserves set. In the early twentieth century, it began to fade away as a presence on farms as growing apples and pears became more lucrative. These ready-to-eat fruits, combined with ready-to-use commercial pectin (first patented in America in 1913), were a one-two punch that pushed quince to the fringe.
My dog is the reason I became obsessed with quince. I took him on snaking walks around the blocks near our house in Portland, Oregon, twice a day, and one day I looked at two trees in a small yard we passed not infrequently. Big, knobby fruits like misshapen pears hung from the tree. Quince! It seemed so strange a find in our unremarkable neighborhood full of potholes and dead-end streets. I nabbed three and stuffed them in my jacket pockets. Every day for the next few weeks I’d return and scrump a few more. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds; the house was on a corner lot at an intersection with a decent amount of traffic. As I reached for upper branches, keeping my eye out for watchful drivers, Scooter would pace and wind his leash around the tree trunks and whine.
I think I liked the impropriety of it, the small thrill of being bad. Those quince-lifting walks were the highlight of my day, the first thing I thought about when I woke up. Eventually I stockpiled enough to fuel all kinds of cooking experiments: quince jelly, poached quince, roasted quince, quince tatin, and the dense quince paste known as membrillo.
This one-woman festival of quince became an annual rite, until one year I decided I’d had enough unnecessary furtiveness—a few times I skipped my quince stealing because the house’s window blinds were open—and I walked up and knocked on the door. “Hi,” I said nervously. “I live in the neighborhood. Is it okay if I take some quince from your trees?”
“Oh, so that’s what those are,” the lady who’d answered my knock said. “Sure, help yourself.” And I did. After the adrenaline rush of rule breaking, I found the contentment of human connection, which was better. I offered to bring her a jar of quince jelly, but she declined.
Quince takes well to spices like clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cooked quince is firm but tender and sweet but bracing, qualities that make it excellent to pair with meats, particularly in Middle Eastern cuisines that embrace sweet-sour flavors in rich main dishes.
May I be your Eve? We now live states away from those twin quince trees, and I can tempt you with knowledge only. The quince you must seek yourself. Its metamorphosis from the most astringent of Rosaceae to an otherworldly delight will be all the sweeter for it.
Harvesting and Storage
Once it’s ready to pick, quince will be a luminous but pale yellow color, and the flocking on its skin won’t be so prominent. The fruits become mellower the longer they stay on the tree. Their form may be burly, but they are more easily jostled than you might imagine, so try not to be rough with them as you fill your pockets or bags.
Quince keeps at cool room temperature for weeks. Use it for decoration: I heap them in a large bowl and gaze at it affectionately. Quince are hauntingly aromatic, too, and if you get close to the bowl you’ll be rewarded with their perfume. There’s nothing else like it.
Dark brown bruised spots may appear over time. If so, use the marred fruits first; trim off and discard the bruised flesh. Cutting into the tough interior of a raw quince takes muscle. I hope you have a big, sharp knife.
Culinary Possibilities
The fruit’s taste is so distinctive it’s pointless to even consider pairings like lavender-quince or rosemary-quince; that may be too baroque. (A vanilla bean, however, will soften and lift up those floral qualities. That’s the route to go.) As mentioned, quince is packed with pectin, the substance that makes jams and jellies set. Quince jelly is labor-intensive, messy, and worth doing at least once.
The longer it cooks, the rosier a quince’s flesh will be. They owe this flattering trait to an unflattering trait: the tannins that make the raw fruits taste puckery. When raw, color-producing pigments are bonded with the tannins in the fruit, the application of heat releases them and destroys some of the tannins, softening the flesh and flavor. Roasted quince gets a nice ruby color, but I find that dry-heat cooking exaggerates its somewhat sandy texture. Poaching, though, renders quince almost custardy.
An entire pie of quince is a bit much even for me, but you can get kinky and mix slices of quince in with an apple or pear pie. Membrillo is fun to make if you are drowning in quince. Unless you own a restaurant or are from Spain, an entire pan of membrillo is a lot of membrillo. It’s typically served with Manchego or other semi-hard cheeses. Quince finds its soul mate in dairy products, as it turns out: poached or candied quince with yogurt, quince jelly on toast with lots of butter.
Chunks of quince make the intricately spiced lamb stews of Persia and Morocco even more enticing. Another approach is to invert the combination and stuff halved quince with seasoned ground lamb.
I am always on the lookout for quince trees, yet have not found any nearby despite persistently asking around. I pined for quince so badly I finally bit the bullet and had some shipped to me from an orchard in Oregon. When I opened the box—each quince was cocooned in paper for padding—the smell hit me like a wave, and the glory of all the quince fixings I would make tricked me into thinking I could once again take off to my godchild trees a few short blocks away and snatch some more to go with them.
JAPONICA
Chaenomeles japonica
Rosaceae family
Throughout the US in zones 5–9
This exceptionally pretty shrub is known as flowering quince or ornamental quince, though it could just as easily be called false quince. Like bona fide quince, it’s in the rose family, and it’s even been classified in the same genus (Cydonia) at times. Japonica (or japonica quince, as it’s sometimes called) bears an edible fruit that is like a smaller, less fragrant, less compelling version of (for lack of a better term) culinary quince. A japonica shrub, even a big one, will not produce nearly as many fruits as a quince tree. You’d be lucky to get enough to make into anything much.
Native to—you guessed it—Japan, what japonica does have to offer are hundreds of lipstick-pink blossoms in the springtime. I used to have one growing outside my kitchen window, and the quiet joy of seeing it blooming in the cool, wet days of spring easily justified having that shrub in the yard. The fruits, if there are any, will appear in the fall. Like their more flavorful culinary quince cousins, japonica quince will be yellow with a greenish tint when ready to pick. Sometimes the branches are thorny, so take care. Japonicas are not for eating straight from the branch. You must cook them. If you have some knocking around, peel them and cube them and toss them into some wonderful thing you’re baking with apples or pears. People do use them to make jelly, and it could quite possibly be amazing, but I’d rather channel my energies into pursuing other fruits. Think of japonica quinces as an unexpected bonus from a plant widely loved for other reasons.
QUINCE JELLY
Makes 10–14 four-ounce jars (1.2–1.7 L)
Quince lends itself beautifully to jelly making. Since quince has such a distinctive flavor, there’s no need (or point) to experiment with fancypants flavor combinations. Maybe a vanilla bean, if you’re feeling cheeky, but that’s it.
Four-ounce jars are the perfect size for quince jelly. Its flavor is too unique to work on PB&J, though it goes well with almond butter. I like quince jelly best on buttered toast or scones.
3½ pounds (1.6 kg) quince
7 cups (1.7 L) water
About 4 cups (800 g) sugar
Rinse off the quince. Quarter them, leaving the cores in and skins on. Put them in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed stockpot, and add enough water to cover the pieces by an inch (2.5 cm).
Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until the quince pieces are fall-apart tender, 45 to 60 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat, and mash the quince with a potato masher until the contents of the pot resemble rough, runny applesauce. (Don’t overdo it or you won’t get enough juice.)
Put the mixture in a large jelly bag (or a strainer lined with two layers of cheesecloth) and set over a large bowl. Strain for 3 to 4 hours. Measure the liquid; you should have 5 to 6 cups (1.2 to 1.5 L). If you have under 4 cups (960 ml), add a little more water to the mashed quince, and let it strain out again.
Put two small plates, preferably white or light-colored, in the freezer.
Pour the strained liquid into a heavy-bottomed pot. Add a scant cup (200 g) sugar for every cup (240 ml) of quince juice. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, until the sugar is dissolved. Reduce the heat to a hard simmer. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot to monitor its temperature.
Skim off and discard any scummy foam that may rise to the surface. Continue cooking the liquid until it passes the wrinkle test: A dab set on the frozen plate and allowed to cool for a minute should wrinkle when you nudge it with your fingertip. If it’s runny, keep on cooking. As the temperature on the thermometer climbs closer to 220°F (105°C), begin doing the gel test.
Ladle the jelly into sterilized jars, leaving ¼ inch (6 mm) headspace. Screw the lids on fingertip tight, and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. Let cool, then label and date.
POACHED QUINCE
Makes 3–4 cups (720–960 ml)
You can roast quince, sauté it, or cook it to death and make membrillo, but all in all I’m a dedicated poacher. It’s lazy preserving, more or less, and perhaps the best vehicle for the true flavor of quince. When I get my hands on some, this is the first thing I do. It’s not particularly challenging, and the results can top ice cream, yogurt, dense pound cake, or delicate panna cotta.
1½ pounds (680 g) quince (3 large quince)
⅓ cup (65 g) granulated sugar
1 (4 inch/10 cm) cinnamon stick
1 (4 inch/10 cm) strip lemon zest
½ vanilla bean
1 small bay leaf
About 2 cups (480 ml) water, or light-bodied white or rosé wine
1–3 tablespoons honey
Rinse off the quince, then peel them (a serrated peeler is especially nice for this). Core the quinces, and chop them into ½-inch (1.3 cm) pieces. You should have about 4 cups. (The cut quince may oxidize, but don’t worry.)
Place the chopped quince, sugar, cinnamon stick, and lemon zest in a medium saucepan. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise; scrape out the seeds, and add the seeds and bean to the pot. Add the bay leaf, plus just enough water or wine to cover the quince.
Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a gentle simmer. Cover, and poach for 10 to 25 minutes, until a fork easily pierces the quince (the cooking time can vary a lot for quince; start checking after 10 minutes). Remove the quince with a slotted spoon; set aside.
Add 1 tablespoon of the honey to the poaching liquid. Bring to a boil, and reduce until a rosy, light-bodied syrup forms (if the syrup reduces too much, just add a little water). Cool a bit and taste; adjust the sweetness with more honey, if desired. Discard the cinnamon stick and lemon peel, though I do like to leave in the vanilla bean. Pour the syrup over the quince; cool. Store, refrigerated, in a tightly covered jar for up to a month.
NOTE: Pectin-rich poached quince makes for a pillowy-smooth base for a sorbet. Just puree the poached quince with some of its poaching liquid and churn away in your ice cream maker.