A forgotten medieval fruit with a vulgar name (2021) | Hacker News Reader

A forgotten medieval fruit with a vulgar name (2021)

bbc.com

116 pointsohjeez55 comments

The 1989 Baird and Thieret paper referenced in the article might be my favorite research paper ever. I read it soon after it came out in the reading room of my college library. After finishing it, I genuinely was uncertain whether it was a real paper or a Borgesian spoof. Bletted for months before it's edible? A Shakespearean insult? On the Unicorn Tapestry and I'd never heard of it?

Here's a full copy of the paper if this intrigues you: https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/BF02858732

Since then, I've confirmed that it actually exists. I've even tasted the fruit. It's... OK. It's a reasonably tasty spiced brown apple/pear sauce with a grainy texture, but with the spices already built in. I've got my own tree planted---more for the novelty than desire for the fruit---and hope I'll finally get a few of my own this year.

Edit: If you are looking for more bizarre ways the Medlar pops up in strange places, here's a page about its traditional use in Basque culture as a symbol of authority: https://alberdimakila.com/en/medlar-tree-wood-basque-walking...

I've known it all my life since my grandfather had a Medlar (Mispel) in his back yard. They use to make great spicy compote from the fruit.

> It's... OK. It's a reasonably tasty spiced brown apple/pear sauce with a grainy texture, but with the spices already built in.

Considering the importance of the spice trade and the cost of spices, this would have been a huge deal at the time.

> Medieval Europeans were fanatical about a strange fruit that could only be eaten rotten.

To be clear, you do not let the medlar "rot" before eating.

Rotting involves decay by microorganisms -- fungi, bacteria, yeasts.

What the medlar does is totally different. It has an enzyme within it that continues to break down the fruit, so it goes from rock hard to soft and edible.

Because this is a different chemical process from traditional ripening, someone gave this the name "bletting". But it's definitely not "rotting".

There's an evolutionary theory that by delaying when the fruit could be eaten, it could attract animals in the winter that would be more likely to eat it (since other fruits were no longer available) and potentially transport its seeds longer distances.

Quince and some persimmons are also commonly bletted before consumption... so it's not even unique to medlars.

It looks like a persimmon too

Also, frost will trigger the process, so nowadays you don't need to wait so long for the fruit to decide to be edible if you put it in the freezer for a bit first.

You can say a fruit is ripening, rotting, or bletting.

Would you say a fruit is ripe, rotted… bletted? Blet?

Bletted.

> "In Notes on a Cellar-Book, the great English oenophile George Saintsbury called bletted medlars the "ideal fruit to accompany wine."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletting

Not to be confused with blepping.

https://cats.com/why-do-cats-blep

Different from ripening? Ripening is a process in which enzymes break down cell walls, acids, and tannins, and break starches into sugars, isn't it? Bletting appears to be a second one.

For whatever reason, ripening is defined as a hormonal process generally triggered by ethylene. Bletting is different from that, and happens after the hormonal ripening. It's more of a biological distinction than a culinary one, I think.

Speaking of forgotten fruit.

The evolution of watermelon is fascinating. It happened in (relatively) recent human history and has really stark changes.

There are old paintings of watermelon from the 17th century and it looks nothing like modern watermelon. [1]

Another wild human guided evolution is the evolution of the chicken. [2] That one literally happened in the last 100 years. A modern chicken is 3x larger than a chicken from the 1950s.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon#/media/File:Pastequ...

[2] https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/how-chickens-tripled...

I have trouble believing this, though I've heard it before. The watermelon in the painting looks exactly like the insides I've seen in my homegrown watermelons when things don't go right, i.e. under watered, not fully pollinated, or just underripe.

That's pretty normal for selectively bred plants - under stressed or unusual conditions it reverts to the older phenotype.

You have trouble believing the contemporary painting is accurate? Look at the linked art.

No, their point is that the painting isn't evidence of changes, because they've seen modern watermelons that look the same.

I'm reminded of what we did to the pug, which used to look like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pug#/media/File:Henry_Bernard_...

Some breeders are trying to breed these traits back in, yielding the "Retro Pug" unofficial breed. Even the old pug is quite a heavy hand we've exerted on dog evolution.

I have a hard time with owners of malformed dog breeds like this. Yes, they can be charming animals, but... it's like wanting to adopt a Down Syndrome child because you think they're cute.

Don't use your money to promote breeding of animals that will predictably suffer due to inbred qualities.

The watermelon in [1] is what you'll get when you try to grow one in your garden.

The chicken in [2] is what you'll see when you look at a feral chicken.

If your watermelons look like [1], you are a bad gardener. Mine look supermarket-ready.

And I've never heard of a feral chicken. How do they survive? And where? They are a fully domesticated species, with almost no defences. Flying 8' up to a branch is a major effort for them. My neighbor loses about half of them each year to predators, and they are kept in a coop at night.

Yeah, it's not that hard to grow good garden fruits and vegetables. Plant them at the right time in good soil, keep the weeds down (that's 95% of the job in the Midwest US), water them if it gets too dry, and watch out for pests. Do that, and your produce will be as good or better than what you can buy.

I'd like to see a feral chicken too. Maybe they exist in regions with no natural predators. If mine aren't well-protected, I lose them to foxes during the day or coons at night.

Forgotten by some, maybe, but there are many Iranian-American and Armenian-American families with medlar trees in their suburban LA yards. It is sold at Paradise Nursery in Chatsworth.

Northern Italy here, I have a tree of nespole and it's pretty common even. Not the most common, but not forgotten here.

While "nespole" is apparently sometimes called "Japanese Medlar" in English, they are more usually called "Loquat" (Eriobotrya japonica): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loquat

They are quite different and not very closely related to the true "Medlar" (Mespilus germanica) described in this article as forgotten: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanica

You might mistake them in a black-and-white photo, but otherwise are easily distinguished. Neither is well known in most of the US, but the loquat is commonly grown in California yards while the medlar is a true rarity here.

It's quite low maintenance and low effort for a fruit tree, and as long as someone likes medlar (don't count me in), why not?

How about the popular fruit with a vulgar name

> The English word "avocado" comes from the Spanish word aguacate, which comes from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word ahuacatl. This Nahuatl word translates to "testicle". The name was likely given to the fruit by the indigenous Nahua people because of its suggestive shape, and the fruit's reputation as an aphrodisiac.

Wherever you got that from has it backwards (it's a myth commonly repeated). The fruit name came first:

> In Molina's Nahuatl dictionary "auacatl" is given also as the translation for compañón "testicle", and this has been taken up in popular culture where a frequent claim is that testicle was the word's original meaning. This is not the case, as the original meaning can be reconstructed as "avocado" – rather the word seems to have been used in Nahuatl as a euphemism for "testicle".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avocado?wprov=sfti1#Etymology

Also "avocado" is an older variant of "abogado," which means lawyer in Spanish. English must have mixed these up.

And French completed this merge by having both "lawyer" and "avocado" translate to "avocat".

If I understand correctly, that's also where the Dutch "advocaat" liqueur comes from. They were trying to reproduce sweet avocado drinks, there were no avocados in Europe, so they made something up they thought tasted similar.

Obrigado, my good fellow.

Arigato, Mr. Roboto!

In German there are called Mispeln or Aspernl (if you come from Austria like me) They are rather uncommon but I know some people who have grown them in their gardens. The fruits are only eadable after the first frost or if you put them into the freezer and the taste is more like mealy apples with a citrus note

My partner and i used to harvest medlars from a community garden. We made medlar jelly from them when they had bletted. It kinda tasted like tea. Must be the tannins. We ended up making a sweet chilli sauce from it when we still hasnt eaten it when our chillis became ripe the following summer

I grow 20ish varieties of fruit, with 60+ more if you add in all the various cultivars within those 20.

Medlar is one I’ve been meaning to add for a couple of years and I think I’ll finally do it next spring.

This is not a forgotten fruit. It is sold in bazaars of Istanbul when the season comes. Some likes it very ripe some likes it firm. But no it is not eaten rotten.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanica#In_culture

> "Credit: Alamy" (x5)

Actual credit for the hero-image engraving is Crispijn van de Passe (attributed, at least), sometime between 1600–1604, currently in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Besides the misattribution, even the description is wrong: only the right drawing (label "18") is the "Mespilus germanica" the article's about—the left one is an unrelated flower, drawn on the same page. (Or however you say it, for an engraving).

It's one plate from a large collection of botanical engravings, "Hortus Floridus" (published 1614–1616) you can browse on archive.org (I link below).

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/object/Dagkoekoeksbl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispijn_van_de_Passe_the_Youn... ("Dutch Golden Age engraver, draughtsman and publisher of prints")

https://archive.org/details/hortusfloridusin00pass/page/n248...

And the watercolor in the 6th image is by Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt (née Alamy?), also in the Rijksmuseum, dated 1596–1610.

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/object/Mispel-Mespil...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselmus_de_Boodt ("Flemish humanist naturalist, Rudolf II physician's gemologist")

Two cultivars available in Australia: Dutch and Nottingham. https://www.daleysfruit.com.au/fruit%20pages/medlar.htm

It's not entirely forgotten, there are some specialist suppliers around and I was able to buy Medlar paste (a lot like Quince Cheese) in the UK last time I was there.

It is indeed a good accompaniement to cheese and wine.

By coincidence, I just took a class on the fruit at the SCA's Pennsic War. We sampled some jam (I even got a small jar to take with me).

There's a grower in Kentucky that sells saplings.

Got it growing in our garden, so not that forgotten.

Same, in Hungary it is also popular enough. Now I want to eat it; Although I have never seen in stores around Switzerland.

In Germany you can sometimes find it at Turkish grocery stores. I grew up eating it every autumn. It's still common in my part of Romania.

My friend's dad grows them in his garden in Greece, we bletted and ate some last year.

So have I. It`s an attractive tree but I haven`t found a good way of using the fruit.

Heavily prevalent in Europe and New Zealand, with a bit in South Africa and couple observations on the west and east coast of America. (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1367002-Crataegus-germanica)

The American variety, Stern's Medlar only has a couple observations in Arkansas (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1368643-Crataegus---canesce...)

Japanese / Chinese Medlar or Loquat are apparently distantly related, yet still have a lot of similarity and edible food (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/76949-Eriobotrya-japonica)

If its included in Crataegus (as Crataegus germanica) then it has a bunch of relations like Hawthorn (also edible, https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/51147-Crataegus-monogyna) and Azaroles (also edible, Haws, https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/191019-Crataegus-azarolus)

Seems to get heavily mixed in naming with the genus Vangueria in the family Rubiaceae, since they're frequently named Medlar, and have edible fruit, just happen to be mostly from Africa. Really confusing, since they look similar, have similar food, yet apparently different genus, family, and order. Don't cross over until they get all the way up to Clade: Eudicots. Apparently they're attached to bad luck and misfortune, so maybe they got a cursed botanical classification.

Wild-Medlar (Vangueria infausta, Africa) https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/340324-Vangueria-infausta

Mountain Medlar (Vangueria parvifolia, Africa) https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/595967-Vangueria-parvifolia

Velvet Wild-Medlar (Vangueria infausta ssp. infausta, Africa) https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/601546-Vangueria-infausta-i...

Bush Medlar (Vangueria madagascariensis, Africa, S. America) https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/466936-Vangueria-madagascar...

Natal Medlar (Vangueria lasiantha, Africa) https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/341606-Vangueria-lasiantha

Waterberg Crowned-Medlar (Vangueria triflora, Africa) https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/595971-Vangueria-triflora

Forest Crowned-Medlar (Vangueria bowkeri, Africa) https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/595965-Vangueria-bowkeri

Sounds intriguing, want to try one now. This is the kind of thing Home Orchard Societies wet their pants over. Probably grown right next to their pawpaw tree.

Why are you sneering at people who want to raise heritage breeds?

And, FWIW, pawpaws are a native tree in Pennsylvania. They're either critical or nearly so in distribution, but ... native.

Not sneering in any way, I love those groups and visit when I get a chance. Also a big fan of our local university's tree collections, they are on a mission to preserve variety of specimens.

To save the curious a click:

> for the best part of 900 years, the fruit was called the "open-arse" – thought to be a reference to the appearance of its own large "calyx" or bottom. The medlar's aliases abroad were hardly more flattering. In France, it was variously known as "la partie postérieure de ce quadrupede" (the posterior part of this quadruped), "cu d'singe" (monkey's bottom), "cu d'ane" (donkey's bottom), and cul de chien (dog's bottom)… you get the idea.

That didn't save me a click because you didn't actually say what I wanted (and suspect most people want) to know: what fruit are we talking about?

> The polite, socially acceptable name by which it's currently known is the medlar.

Unless the parent of your comment was edited after you posted, it does say what you wanted to know, here: "The medlar's aliases abroad were hardly more flattering [...]"

lol. This isnt forgotten at all. Monkey butt. They have it at one of my neighborhood farms with signs to "not pick it your self because we harvest it. There are web pages that show where you can find it in the wild.

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