A Medal for the Medlar

December 12, 2024

Our Medlar tree exploded with plump fruit this year, enough to share and also cook up a delectable paste. Squish out the seeds (roll them around in your mouth for a tasty bonus) and cook the fruit with a little water and a tiny bit of brown sugar. The fruit is about half the size of an apple. Ten medlars make about 1 3/4 pounds, or 3.5 cups, of thick fruit paste.

Fruit people introduce species like medlar, pawpaw, and quince as “alternative fruits” (fruit that is not commonly grown or sold in grocery stores). Unless you are a fruit person, you might not be familiar with medlar.

However, scientists, working on solving world food shortages, would be tickled if you planted a couple wherever you can. This fruit shines as a nutrient source, the tree is easy to maintain and, in our experience, much more resilient to climate, pests and pathogens versus apples or pears. At FECO, we have the ‘Macrocarpa’ cultivated German variety and it produces large fruits that are sweet and taste a bit like spiced applesauce. The texture is somewhat grainy.

Common Medlar (Mespilus germanica) grows wild in the Southern Caucasus (I had to expand the map so I could be sure of exactly where those countries were), the foothills in the south and south-east of Asia Minor, and Northern Iran. The fruit is still very popular in those countries. The tree was planted all over Europe, at least as far back as 800AD and was wildly popular up through the 1800s. By the 1950s, poof, it was all but forgotten in Europe, even though this fruit matures into the winter when few other fruits are available!

In recent years, scientists have been focusing on neglected and underutilized wild and less common plant species (e.g., medlar, loquat, quince, hawthorn, service tree and pawpaw) as a way to boost the nutrient value of existing foods and to keep up with global demand for food. Medlar is low on the glycemic index, high in minerals,  organic acids, pectins, amino acids, carotenoids, sugars, and antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds (polyphenols, including flavonoids).

Burnt Ridge Nursery tree

Medlar fruit needs to be ‘blet’ to become more edible, as do persimmons and quince. To blet is to allow the continued maturation of the fruit in order to increase the sugars (starch changes to fructose) and decrease the tannins and acids.

But here is the catch-22. The longer the fruit is blet, the sweeter it is but some of the nutritional value declines. Total phenolic content, total antioxidant activity and ascorbic acid content can decrease by as much as 50% between the time that the fruit is at physiological maturity (skin is green, the pulp white and fruit hard -134 DAFB (days after full bloom)) and the time it is at consumption maturity (skin is brown, the pulp is mostly white and the fruit is softening -164 DAFB). A good compromise for the home orchardist is to allow the fruit to remain on the tree through a couple of hoar frosts and then harvest and enjoy. And reminder to eat the peel!

Ruth

Notes –

Even bletted,  medlar exceeds the apple as far as most nutritional markers and is also on par with the average apple, in terms of total phenolic, antioxidant activity and ascorbic acid content.

Those of us west of the Cascades might not have hoar frosts in November or early December. We can try to hold up the harvest until we have a couple of ground frosts.

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References:

Medlar—A Comprehensive and Integrative Review
Catalina Voaides,
Plants (Basel) 2021 Oct 29;10(11):2344. doi: 10.3390/plants10112344
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8622783/

Changes in the Fruit Quality Parameters of Medlar Fruit (Mespilus germanica L.) after Heat Treatment, Storage, Freezing or Hoarfrost
Maja Mikulic-Petkovsek,
Foods 2023 Aug 16;12(16):3077.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10453525/

Food Potential of Alternative Pome Fruit Trees Cultivated in Moscow Region
Ekaterina V. Solomonova1, 2019
Scientific Study & Research, Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology, Food Industry
https://www.proquest.com/openview/3f6e9c80494a866ab187ad61a7f67d19/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=716381

Effect of Five Different Stages of Ripening on Chemical Compounds in Medlar (Mespilus germanica L.
Otakar Rop
Molecules, 2010 Dec 28;16(1):74–91
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6259355/

What’s the Deal with Hoarfrost and Rime Ice?
Jan 03, 2019 by Jana Hemphill
https://www.deschuteslandtrust.org/news/blog/2019-blog-posts/hoarfrost-and-rime-ice