MEDLARS;EAT WHEN DECAYING:: HISTORY, USES AND HEALTH BENEFITS OF MEDLARS

MEDLAR TREE AND MEDLAR FRUIT, MESPILUS GERMANICA  

The medlar is a member of the rose, Rosaceae family and until 1990 was thought to be the only medlar tree in existence. However, a wild variety of medlar, Mespilus canescens was found in Arkansas in the US. However, this is “critically imperiled” or “at high risk of extinction due to extreme rarity” according to the IUCN Red List. These medlars are close relatives of the hawthorn and pear, and are also related to loquats, apricots, plums, peaches, Alpine Lady’s Mantle, Lady’s Mantle, parsley-piert, avens, cinquefoil, silverweed, apples, dog roses and blackthorn, to name but a few of its relatives.                                                         

  Eating a medlar is not usually a question of eating it straight from the tree as it has to be bletted, which means that it has to begin to decay before it is palatable. If there has been a frost then this bletting can occur naturally and some people let their medlars blet on the tree. However they can be harvested while still green and then laid in a bed of sawdust or bran in a cool dark place, to decay. The brown flesh can then be scooped out and eaten, or cooked. The seeds contain hydrocyanic acid, however, and so must not be eaten. There is a recipe on this site for medlar jelly, which goes well with pheasant. The pulp is a mild laxative, so you shouldn’t eat too much of this fruit.

  It is believed that medlar trees are indigenous to south west Asia and possibly also to south east Europe. They grew along the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria and Turkey, and were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who had them in the second century BC. They were popular in the Middle Ages but fell out of favour when other fruits were introduced.

  Medlars look a little like a crab apple crossed with a rosehip, and were very popular with the Victorians. They stewed them and ate them with cream, and a dessert was made with them as you would make lemon curd.

  The medlar bark was once used, although not very successfully, as a quinine substitute. The fruit, leaves and bark have all been used in medicine. Nicholas Culpeper, the English herbalist, writing his Herball in the 17^th century has this to say about them:-

“Government and virtues. The fruit is old Saturn's, and sure a better medicine he hardly hath to strengthen the retentive faculty; therefore it stays women's longings. The good old man cannot endure women's minds should run a gadding. Also a plaister made of the fruit dried before they are rotten, and other convenient things, and applied to the reins of the back, stops miscarriage in women with child. They are powerful to stay any fluxes of blood or humours in men or women; the leaves also have this quality. The decoction of them is good to gargle and wash the mouth, throat and teeth, when there is any defluxions of blood to stay it, or of humours, which causes the pains and swellings. It is a good bath for women, that have their courses flow too abundant: or for the piles when they bleed too much. If a poultice or plaister be made with dried medlars, beaten and mixed with the juice of red roses, whereunto a few cloves and nutmegs may be added, and a little red coral also, and applied to the stomach that is given to casting or loathing of meat, it effectually helps. The dried leaves in powder strewed on fresh bleeding wounds restrains the blood, and heals up the wound quickly. The medlar-stones made into powder, and drank in wine, wherein some Parsley-roots have lain infused all night, or a little boiled, do break the stone in the kidneys, helping to expel it.”

  The medlar is also mentioned in European literature, with Cervantes referring to them in “Don Quixote”; the eponymous hero and Sancho Panza “stretch themselves out in a field and stuff themselves with acorns or medlars.”

   Shakespeare also mentions the medlar disparagingly in his plays, notably in “Romeo and Juliet” Act 2 scene i, when Mercutio laughs at Romeo’s unrequited love for Rosaline :-

   Now will he sit under a medlar tree

   And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit

   As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.

   O Romeo, that she were, O that she were

   An open-arse and though a poperin pear.”

(“Open-arse “was a common name for the medlar fruit because of the way the top of it looks.)

Again he mentions the medlar in “Measure for Measure” Act 4 scene iii, when Lucio excuses his denial of his past sexual exploits, saying, “they would else have married me to the rotten medlar.”

 Geoffrey Chaucer also mentions the medlar in the “Prologue to the Reeve’s Tale”

   “This white top advertises my old years,

    Mt heart, too, is as mouldy as my hairs,

    Unless I fare like medlar, all perverse,

    For that fruit’s never ripe until it’s worse,

    And falls among the refuse or in straw,

    We ancient men, I fear, obey this law,

    Until we’re rotten we cannot be ripe.”

John Gerard, writing in the 16^th century clearly enjoyed eating medlars as he wrote, that they were “often perfumed with sugar or honey and so being prepared are pleasant and delightfull.”

This is doubtless because of the smell of the fruit which can be off-putting as it is musty. However when cooked it loses some of this smell.

MEDLAR JELLY RECIPE

MEDLAR JELLY

For this recipe you need to use bletted medlars, ones which have started to decay. (Read the medlar post.) You will also need to have sterilized glass jars which are warm to pour the jelly into. Medlar jelly does not need pectin as the fruit contains enough to set it. It goes well with rich meat such as pheasant.

MEDLAR JELLY                                                            

Ingredients

3lbs or 1½ kgs bletted medlars, halved

400gr. firm medlars (unbletted) halved

3 large lemons, halved

2 tart (sharp) apples, halved

2 litres water

800 gr sugar

METHOD

Remove any rotten bits of the medlars. Then put all the fruit in a large, deep saucepan and cover it with water.

Bring the mixture to the boil and then turn the heat down and simmer the mixture for an hour, partially covered with the saucepan lid.

After an hour, pour the fruit mixture into a jelly bag or large piece of muslin and tie to a tap with a jug or bowl underneath to catch the strained liquid. Squeeze occasionally to help speed up the process.

When all the juice has been extracted from the bag or cloth, pour it back into the cleaned saucepan and boil it hard for about six minutes. Next add the sugar.(If you have four cups of liquid, you need to add four cups of sugar and so on.)

When the sugar has dissolved, continue boiling for another two minutes, then ladle the liquid into the jars, seal and leaves to cool.

After twelve hours or so check the jelly to see if it is firm; if it isn’t pour it back into the saucepan and boil for just under ten minutes. Pour it back into the jars and it will set. 

WATER FIGWORT OR WATER BETONY: HEALTH BENEFITS AND USES OF WATER FIGWORT

WATER BETONY, WATER FIGWORT, SCROPHULARIA UMBROSA AND SCROPHULARIA AURICULATA 

These plants are actually, it would appear, not the same, as the genus names are both accepted. The plant was called water betony because the leaves were very similar to those of wood betony, although the two plants are not related. Water figwort and water betony are in the figwort family of plants, the Scrophulariaceae and seem to have been used for the same purposes in medicine. Water Betony S. umbrosa, can be found in Europe, and temperate Asia as well as some parts of North Africa, while it would appear that S. auriculata is not a native of temperate Asia. It is however native to the British Isles and Ireland. Both plants have other synonyms but the names here are the accepted ones.

  Water figwort and water betony, then, have much the same properties as the common figwort, although it would seem that Nicholas Culpeper writing in his herbal of the 17^th century, thought that they had different properties. He doesn’t write as much about the water betony as he does about the common figwort, and ends his description of it with a small diatribe regarding distilled waters:-

  “Government and virtues. Water betony is an herb of Jupiter in Cancer, and is appropriated more to wounds and hurts in the breast than wood-betony, which follows; it is an excellent remedy for sick hogs. It is of a cleansing quality: the leaves bruised and applied are effectual for all old and filthy ulcers: and especially if the juice of the leaves be boiled with a little honey, and dipped therein, and the sores dressed therewith; as also for bruises or hurts, whether inward or outward; the distilled water of the leaves is used for the same purpose; as also to bathe the face and hands spotted or blemished, or discoloured by sun burning.

I confess I do not much fancy distilled waters, I mean such waters as are distilled cold; some virtues of the herb they may haply have (it were a strange thing else;) but this I am confident of, that being distilled in a pewter still, as the vulgar and apish fashion is, both chemical oil and salt is left behind, unless you burn them, and then all is spoiled, water and all, which was good for as little as can be, by such a distillation in my translation of the London dispensatory.”

Culpeper also calls this plant brownwort and says that in Yorkshire it was called Bishop’s leaves.

  The plants are attractive to wasps and bees, and grow in shady places along river banks and close to water. It was used as Culpeper mentions for cosmetic purposes by the old herbalists and also as a vulnerary and detergent for old sores and wounds. For skin problems a decoction or infusion was made and taken orally; this was used to cure eczema, psoriasis and other skin ailments.

  The root of this plant was used in a decoction to rid the intestines of worms. The leaves can be harvested in June and July when they reach their peak and dried for later use. They can be applied fresh to wounds and skin rashes or cuts, or used in an ointment. For this purpose they used to be boiled with fat, usually lard.

  Scrophularia auriculata has proved in tests to have anti-inflammatory properties and to contain iridoid glycosides which promote wound healing, so the ancient herbalists once again seem to have known what they were doing.

 The plant should not be used by people with heart conditions as it affects the pulse rate, and is a relation of the foxglove, eyebright, mullein, snap dragon, brahmi and toadflax, to name just a few of its relatives.

COMMON MILKWEED - KAPOK SUBSTITUTE: HEALTH BENEFITS AND USES OF COMMON MILKWEED

COMMON MILKWEED, ASCLEPIAS SYRIACA 

The common milkweed is native to North America, and has been introduced to Europe, where it was cultivated as a bee plant. It certainly has very fragrant flowers, to attract these insects. It was formerly class in the Asclepiadaceae family, with relatives which included Indian sarsaparilla and aak, although not it is in the Apocynaceae or dogbane family along with the devil tree and bitter oleander, among others. A synonym for this species is Aslcepias cornutti.

  It has been used for medicinal purposes by Native American tribes, and the root, combined with cuckoo pint, was used by Mohawk women for temporary infertility. The leaves and stem contain latex which was applied to rheumatic joints to bring pain relief. This latex was also used for cancer and tumour treatments. In the past the edible seeds were used to treat asthma, to disperse kidney stones and to treat STDs among other diseases. The root possesses diuretic properties too and can also promote sweat during bouts of fever.

  The Cherokee used the plant for backache, stones and gravel in the body’s organs and for STDs.

  In the US and Canada the plant is well-known as it provides sustenance for the Monarch butterfly’s caterpillars, but we can eat it too. The flower buds, unopened, can be cooked and eaten like kachnar buds, (these are said to taste like garden peas or broccoli) and the open flower clusters can also be eaten in the same way as elder flowers. The tender young shoots are considered a delicacy by some and are used as an asparagus substitute, while young leaves and shoots can also be cooked as spinach. However it is best to use a plant for culinary purposes that is under 20 cms. tall. The flower clusters can also be boiled down to brown sugar, and should be harvested for best results in the early morning when dew is still clinging to them.

  The young tender seed pods (around 3 centimetres long) can also be cooked and are said to taste like okra. The seeds themselves can be eaten raw or cooked but are best used before the floss forms on them, although this is also edible. The latex in the stem and leaves can also be chewed like gum.

  You can also eat sprouted seeds and oil for culinary purposes may be obtained from them.

  The common milkweed also has other uses: a gum may be made from the latex and can be used to adhere gemstones to settings in jewellery. It is also possible to make rubber from the latex.

  The seed floss has been used as a substitute for kapok, which was not available during the Second World War. Schoolchildren all over the Midwest were recruited to gather thousands of pounds of this floss so that it could be used as stuffing for life-preservers for the armed forces. Today it is used instead of down for insulating jackets and comforters by a firm in Nebraska, and it is said to be much better than down for insulating purposes, of course it is cheaper too as down is imported.

  The plant was studies in the 1990s as a possible source of biofuel, and scientists are renewing their interest in the common milkweed now that technology has further advanced, as production methods are becoming more cost-effective that they were in the past.