the.com/medlar
the fruit you eat rotten on purpose, which is exactly as metal as it sounds
means A small brown apple-like fruit that's only edible once it has been softened by frost or left to rot to mushiness, a process called bletting.
from From Old French 'medler' or 'medlier', going back to Latin 'mespilum' and Greek 'mespilon', the name for the same fruit in antiquity — a word so old its further roots are lost. The blunt, slightly comic English 'medlar' is the worn-down survivor of that long classical pedigree.
- eat rotten
- Edible only after bletting, a controlled decay
- rude nickname
- Medieval English called it open-arse
- chaucer dropped it
- Mentioned it bluntly in The Canterbury Tales
- old guard
- Cultivated by Romans, then nearly forgotten
- taste
- Like spiced applesauce with date and cinnamon notes
medlar tree mespilus germanica — european species cultivated since medieval times, fruit requires bletting (frost exposure) before eating
nottingham medlar — english cultivar from nottinghamshire, historically common in victorian gardens
royal medlar — french cultivar with larger fruit, grown in mediterranean regions