Quinces and Questioning …

If you have seen my Theme Reveal for the A2Z Challenge 2022, then you will know that I am writing about becoming Vegetarian gradually as a response to the crisis in food supply chains sparked by the pandemic and made worse by the WAR in Ukraine. As well, I am keeping to the theme I originally planned of food which can be eaten in its own right as well as becoming an ingredient in other dishes…

Quince is another fruit I tried for the first time in our lockdown sojourn in Crete in the winter of 2020. Although there were virtually no cases of covid whilst we were there, the lockdown, which began two weeks after we arrived, was very strict and food was one of the few things available for interest. We lived next door to my sister-in-law and her Greek chef partner, who could not stop the habit of producing food in quantity and variety, and quince was one of the things he made for us. Not just the fruit itself, but he carefully kept the skins in water with lemon juice as he peeled them (very tough to peel) since they discolour quickly. Then, whilst the fruit, sliced, was cooking in a syrup with cinnamon sticks and star anise until it magically transformed into a beautiful shade of pink, he chopped up the pieces of skin until they were about a centimetre square, and cooked them in an even more sugary syrup. I have mentioned this Greek tradition of preserving things in syrup before and so far, we had experienced grapes, the pith of the giant lemons and now Quince skin. He cooked it until it also turned pink and thickened just short of setting like a jam. Inspired, I plucked some lemons from over the balcony, bought my own quinces from the market (highlight of my lockdown week) and some Seville oranges which are grown about towns as ornamental trees. I then made marmalade from the three things which I felt to be the best marmalade I had ever made. I hail from Oxford, and along with the annual boat race, the Dark Blue/Light Blue thing, our disdain for Cambridge (the new place, upstart breakaways) is expressed in our choice of marmalade – thick-cut for Oxford, thin-cut for Cambridge – so my marmalade was naturally chunky. It must have achieved a set quite suddenly because despite frequent samples going into the fridge, and the moment I got a set, pouring the marmalade into jars, it came out very firm, not that that’s a problem – however, on returning to England, I found quinces in an Asian supermarket and repeated the recipe with the same thick, but delicious result. I say recipe, but it was the basic jam method, weigh your fruit, cook in the minimum of added water and once cooked, add sugar equal in weight to the fruit – fuller instructions here.

Reminded by one of the comments from Tasha – I had tasted Quince before Crete in the form of Membrillo in which the quince is cooked and pureed and set as a quite solid jelly, slices of which are served on your cheeseboard to enhance the eating of cheese. Delicious!

Short and sweet today… And so to Questioning.

What I have realised in the course of writing these posts for this year’s A2Z theme – especially the half relating to gradually becoming vegetarian, is that I am constantly asking questions, about the world, about current events and about food – well ok that’s not so much new self-knowledge, but realise I feel the need to proselytise about those issues. It makes me angry when I see cynical or misleading marketing by the food industry, or see around the news headlines about the war in Ukraine to the way in which the fallout from Putin’s hubris is falling on the whole world. But it also gives me joy to share the knowledge of food that I have enjoyed gathering over the years, or to try and instil a questioning attitude in others, because the world, it’s food, and our relationship to it is complex. Does that spoil my basic enjoyment of food, not at all, anymore, I imagine, than an obstetrician’s knowledge of childbirth spoils their wonder at the birth of their own children or maybe every baby they see come into the world… I hope my joy in sharing comes across and is not seen as man-splaining…

If you have a favourite, marmalade, or any other food story, or you want the answer to a food question, or feel the need to share food thoughts of your own – feel free to comment, please…