Quince essentials: the local story of an exotic fruit

The mighty quince: Gillian Riley savours the perfume. Photograph: James Mosley

This ancient golden perfumed fruit, from the same family as apples and pears, seems to link with Hackney’s past, present and future. It’s too hard and woody to eat raw, needs loving care in its preparation and is a somewhat erratic crop, and so has more or less dropped out of commercial use in this country.

You might find some by chance in West End gourmet establishments, but here in Hackney we have them piled up before our eyes in almost every Turkish food store, mounds of fragrant ayva, with us from about now and well into the New Year, when they are replaced by ones from Chile.

The homesick Roman foot-soldier occasionally befriended in this column might have had a slab of cotognata or quince paste in his kit, munching it as he toiled up Stamford Hill, for the fruit was known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans. This dense mixture of quince and honey was valued for its nutritional and medicinal qualities.

He might also have had a flask of the condiment defrutum, a sort of relish made from boiled up grape juice flavoured with quince and spices.

But later on Hackney must have had its own crop of quinces. By the sixteenth century it was a pleasant collection of salubrious country hamlets on the outskirts of London.

The nicest character in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall is Ralph Sadler, faithful adopted son and secretary of Thomas Cromwell, who prospered enough to build himself a fine modern house in rural Hackney, with kitchen garden and orchard.

Today Bryck House, now called Sutton House, is hemmed in by the dense urban cacophony of Mare Street, but indoors there is calm and space (much needed for their nine children and many retainers) with large reception rooms, ample cellars, and serious kitchen fireplace, and pots of herbs in the back courtyard.

Quince trees would have provided Ralph’s wife Helen with fruit to make jellies, jam, quince paste (a version of Spanish membrillo), sweetmeats, pasties, tarts, pies, and all the good things listed in a contemporary cookery manuscript by the home counties housewife Elinor Fettiplace, whose notebooks had more recipes for quinces than any other fruit.

The Fettiplace manuscript has a recipe for quince paste in which you cook the fruit in a little water until soft, let it cool, remove the cores and pips, and add 1 lb of sugar to every pint of fruit pulp (1 kilo to 1 litre) and cook for about an hour to thicken and turn a lovely pinkish red.

This can then be poured into a shallow container, and will keep for ages. These quince products gave us the name ‘marmalade’ for our bitter orange preserve, from the Portuguese word for quince jam, marmelada.

But a beautiful jelly can be made from the juices of quince stewed in water, strained and boiled up with sugar in the same proportions as above, the pale pink liquid becoming a glowing red as it cooks. This is good with roast lamb, pork or game.

Another way of enjoying the perfume of a ripe quince is to grate it, raw and unpeeled but without the pips, put into a jar, add sugar to taste, and top up with a good quality gin. Shake it to dissolve the sugar and try to forget all about it for a few months. It will make a nice tipple over Christmas.

This ancient golden fruit is implicated in a Greek legend that might be the first example of misogyny in sport. Atalanta, beautiful, chaste and the fastest sprinter in the world, was disinclined to marry and so arranged with the gods that she would only accept a man capable of out-running her; those who failed died. A hopeful suitor Hippomenes consulted Venus, who gave him three golden apples and told him what to do with them.

As he was overtaken by Atalanta he chucked a golden apple ahead, she slowed down to grab it, and so as the race unfolded he checked her pace, won the race, and gained his bride, who ended up with a handsome husband and three delicious quinces. Smart girl. She might have used some of the country house recipes above, or, nearer home, some superb Middle Eastern dishes in which quinces are cooked with meat or poultry
and spices.

Quinces originated in the Caucasus, and were used by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, passed to Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and enjoyed in both sweet and savoury dishes.

A stunning recipe from Azerbaijan, my adaptation of a soup in Sonia Uvezian’s Cooking from the Caucasus, involves a range of ingredients, all available here in Hackney.

Lamb soup

1 lb shin of beef on the bone
1 lb stewing lamb, cut into cubes
butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
garlic and ginger finely chopped
1 stick cinnamon, 4 cloves,
6 peppercorns
salt to taste
1 or 2 whole quinces
12 dried and pitted prunes
20 or so chestnuts (boiled or roasted, peeled and skinned)
1 tin cooked chickpeas, drained
more butter

Simmer the beef with water and bay leaves for an hour, to get a nice broth. Meanwhile cook the onion in butter until soft, add the lamb, garlic, ginger, spices and salt. If the quinces are too hard to cut up comfortably put them in the pot, whole, and cook gently for about half an hour until the meat is nearly done, then add the chickpeas and chestnuts with the prunes and cook some more (or cheat, using sous-vide precooked chestnuts, and tinned chickpeas). Cut up the quinces when they are soft. A splash of rosewater just before serving accentuates the perfume of the quince.

I have mentioned the skills of Turkish chefs trained in Konya, influenced by the teachings of Mevlana, but the local housewives are also renowned for their skills. It was there, many years ago, that I enjoyed dishes produced by a group of local cooks, organised by Nevin Halici, who teaches and writes about traditional Turkish cooking.

An enigmatic, neither sweet nor savoury, dish of stuffed quinces was memorable. The delicate combination of meat and fruit, lightly flavoured with cinnamon, is less rich than the powerful stew above. The recipe for Ayva Dolmasi can be found in Nevin Halici’s Turkish Cookbook.

Hollow out your quinces and stuff with a mixture of part-cooked rice, currants, minced lamb and cinnamon, all kneaded together. Cut out the cores and some of the flesh from the quinces (difficult and dangerous). Place in an ovenproof dish and top each quince with butter and sugar. Put some water in the bottom of the dish, and cook, covered, in a moderate oven for an hour or until the fruit is tender.