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Comment by rahimiali | Hacker News Reader

The article says the medlar is "musmula" in Persian. Maybe, but if you're Iranian, you'll more likely know it as "marmala". Reading this, this sounds oddly like "marmalade", which according to Wikipedia, comes from the Portuguese. But unlike the English version of marmalade, which is made from citrus, the original Portuguese is made from quince, an Asian fruit. My guess is this was actually initially made from marmala, and quince as only a variant. What a wonderful etymological chase through the name of a fruit.

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That both fruits are in the Malinae subtribe and both typically need bletted before they're edible lends credence to this hypothesis.

> if you're Iranian, you'll more likely know it as "marmala"

Are you sure? It looks like azgil (ازگیل).

Indeed you seem to be right, and now I'm not so sure about my claim.

What I learned from following around the ازگیل page is even more interesting. Those pages say it's known as "coonoos" in gilan, and "kenes", "kendes", or "kaandes" in mazandaran. I can't help but hear "quince" in these. Which happens to be in the same family.

The fact that jars of marmalade are usually labeled "orange marmalade" is a hint that it used to be made from something else, just like tomato ketchup was not always made with tomatoes. (Ketchup used to be a kind of fish sauce from Southeast Asia.)

In Kosovo we call them “mushmulla”, they are quite common. As a kid used to eat a lot and I preferred them in their “unrotten” form since they were freely growing in the hills surrounding my town.

Oh man, i was wondering what this mysterious fruit was until I saw its mushmulla they are talking about. It's pretty common here in Kosovo and it can be found accross supermarkets.

the italian word is "nespola" and the latin is "mespilus", so probably there's some shared indo-european root with "musmula".

In Croatian it is mušmula. My late grandfather would give them to us kids, and I never liked it.

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