I discovered a Medlar tree in a park close to us yesterday, so I picked up these windfalls. I intended to make a filling with them for pie tonight but they are still too hard even for that. I am going to follow Rachel's example and wait for them to get bletted over time - however long that takes.
I listened to some WW2 memories about Coventry tonight, and remembered how long my parent's generation waited for things to turn back to a normality - six horrible years. That puts out little trials and tests into perspective, especially since we have no bombs dropping on us to destroy our homes, towns and lives.
We are, in the larger scheme of things, so fortunate.
The medlars are still hard and virtually no change since I picked them up. I have almost given up on them.
ReplyDeleteAll you have to do is wait for them to rot. Everything rots, even the corpse of Lenin.
DeleteI've just finished In Search of England, which was lovely, and have passed it on to my English neighbours in the apartment next door who are in the doldrums over not being able to get back to their place in Devon this year, where they usually divide their retirement year. It may be a bittersweet read, reminding them too much of what they miss. As is the book on the whole for many. He describes Coventry as being so beautiful, and to know what was yet to come ...
ReplyDeleteI love that book. I am currently reading 'In Search of London', which was written in 1956 (I think) and describes bomb sites which I remember as a kid. It is also very informative and fascinating on old London.
DeleteI've never seen Medlars before. are they some kind of persimmon?
ReplyDeleteThey are a very close relative of pears. They look a bit like persimmon in the same way that rose hips look like them. The thing on the base used to be a flower. If you eat them raw you have to wait until they are completely rotten. You dig out the flesh with a spoon. It takes courage the first time, a bit like your first live oyster.
DeleteWe are very fortunate. Just the fact that so many people cannot recognize just how little is being asked of them, comparatively speaking, is aggravating. We have added 252k cases in 24 hours.
ReplyDeleteAnd Trump is now claiming that the vaccine was his triumph.
DeletePeople just to be stronger.
ReplyDeleteYou mean 'have' I suppose. A lot of mental health issues are being shown up by this. Everything is just under the surface in 'normal' times.
DeleteI too have been trying lately to take comfort in the fact that there are difficult situations that have lasted for years, and people have nevertheless survived and gone through it.
ReplyDeleteI think that later generations of Brits just aren't as tough as our parents.
Delete50k have not survived, isn't that the point?
DeleteIf "not as tough" means we don't have to endure food shortages, chilblains, walking to work with holes in our shoes and Izal toilet paper, I'm all for it.
By 'toughness' I was thinking about the stress and anxiety experienced by the survivors who have not had bombs falling on their heads while they eat cats and use Izal.
DeleteOh I see. I think that stress and depression were swept under the carpet, regarded as a weakness of character and sufferers were hidden away (or put away) referred to in whispers because it was something not understood and to be ashamed of.
DeleteAs it happens, a bomb came through the roof of my father's family home and landed on his oldest sister's bed. Luckily it didn't explode, otherwise she would not have become my auntie. Not sure about the eating cats bit, they kept chickens and a pig in the back garden.
Yes. People with shell-shock were shot for being cowards. Unthinkable now, but that's what it was like. Now, M.E. has just begun to be taken seriously, largely thanks to one of the symptoms of Long Covid - chronic, extreme lethargy and fatigue.
DeleteNever mind the medlars, I love your fruit bowl!
ReplyDeleteThat normally lives in the cupboard and comes out for mixing.
DeleteGoodness! Have'nt had Medlars in ages...
ReplyDeleteNice raw, when ripe, peel the stalk end,
hold the crown and squish out the fruit..
They have a lot of pips..Otherwise cook
them as jellies or jams or bake them with
white wine, a little dark sugar..Then purée
them nice with cream...! :)
No! Sorry! Never been to Coventry..I'll Google
it...!
Yes! Lennin's body did rot..eventually..! After
removing his brain for dissection..!
Interesting stories about Lennin's after death,
after suffering three strokes, and after dissecting
his brain they found he actually suffered from Scierosis!
I had forgotten about the pips. I'll have to put them through a sieve. Someone was looking at Lenin in his glass box once, when his ear fell off and landed on the pillow. When he came back next day, the ear had magically glued itself back on the head.
DeleteIn the park of the Charlottenburger Schloss are two medlar trees - evidently nobody knows what to do with those little fruits. As I do not take the underground these days it is to far for me to walk - but maybe those fruits are ripe when the underground is safe again :-)
ReplyDelete...and the paint stain on the road disappears...
DeleteWell said Tom ..... my sister and I were saying how on earth would people cope in a war ? Some say this is worse because in the WW11, people could socialise !!! I think the thought of our loved ones going off to fight, not knowing if they would ever see them again, the Blitz and the fear was a hell of a lot worse. I have always said that our generation have been so lucky and, if this is the only difficult thing that I have to deal with, then we are indeed, so fortunate.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the medlars ..... I have a feeling you might be waiting a long time for them to ripen but then, we have all the time in the world at the moment ! XXXX
Here in peacetime U.K. we have gone soft, unlike the medlars. The fact that we cannot socialise has turned this crisis into a bit of a psychodrama. It is also why we are finding it hard to replicate the spirit of the Blitz. Mind you, there was a lot of selfishness going on in WW2 London. 'The Spirit of the Blitz' was a Ministry of Information invention which worked quite well.
DeleteMeant to say..if the fruit is wanted it
Deleteshould be left on the tree until late
October and stored until it appears in
the first stages of decay..then it is
ready for eating...
Did you know Shakespeare referred to
Medlars as 'open~arse' fruit..HeHe! :)
Don't think they appeared in any of his
plays...! :).
Your medlars look rather like Kaki fruit, a special winter treat in Spain. Bright orange, they're eaten when soft to the point of melting and have become cloyingly sweet. Quite revolting... enjoy!
ReplyDeleteGZ thinks they might be persimmon. If so I quite like them. At least we do not wait until they actually rot before we eat them - if we eat them at all.
DeleteLets put this to bed...
DeleteThe Medlar fruit has NO connection to
Persimmon..
HaHa! I mentioned above about the fruit
being mentioned in a Shakespearian play..
It is in fact..in Shakespear's 'Timon
of Athens'..
So even the Bard himself felt a little fruity
at times...! :o).
Kaki I think is the Japanese name for Persimmon...and a glaze inspired by the fruit
ReplyDeleteI have a jar of medlar jelly I was given...I must get round to trying it
The present situation is like a war.. with an invisible enemy
I don't see it as comparable to war - unless maybe a cold war with the constant threat of being poisoned by Russian agents.
DeleteI have the drill. I was without internet for four days, until today. I did not go crazy because I've have to live without real life for ten months. No internet? No problem. I'll just get back to work.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see the outcome of your windfall fruit.
I have just heard that older people can tolerate loneliness far better than the young. It makes sense when you think about it. It would take me a few days to recover from FOMO if I lost the internet, but I don't mind missing out on the party which calls itself Facebook.
Delete