The thing with dog’s arse fruit, or the Nottingham Medlar, is that you must wait till the fruit are rotting to harvest. That they now are and so as a half term treat, Joshua, myself and Jaya went to harvest the one tree we planted a couple of years ago in the new orchard. It is only about five foot tall so even Jaya could pick the fruit from the lower branches.
The idea of picking or eating rotting fruit might seem unpleasant but before they rot the fruit are hard and bitter. Now they are sweet and soft and I tried one raw and it was perfectly good.
So we picked the tree bare and I stewed the entire harvest up with a bit of water to create a mush. It is sort of apple like but with a vague taste of something a bit like cinammon. The rest of this family eat cornflakes or other incredibly expensive and unhealthy manufactured cereals in the morning.
I try to have porridge or Greek yoghurt with stewed apple. Though we are still harvesting apples so I can make yet more apples stewed with a bit of brown sugar and mixed spice, I now have an alternative which needs no sugar or flavourings. The last photo shows stewed cooking apples on the left and the stewed dog’s arse fruit on the right.
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