Recipe:Saturday Quince-o-rama, Part 1: Pliny's Quinces Preserved in Honey
Canning work is never lonely for me. There's always a crowd in the kitchen, even if I'm the only one who can see them. My company includes the specters of memory and the visions of friends and family who will eventually eat whatever it is I'm making. I like to stand there and imagine who will best like the thing on the stove at that moment: plum jam for Claire, pickled okra for David, apricot butter for my mom. You get the idea.
Lately, though, I've been more interested in spending kitchen time with real, live friends. Canning is sociable work to share, leisurely enough to talk if that's what you want to do, and busy enough to not feel the pressure of filling dead air space with chatter. And an extra set of hands always speeds the project along.
Willy and I have been wanting to do some quince work for a long time now, and we finally got together at Greenvalley yesterday. With 15 pounds of gargantuan ripe quince on the counter in front of us (bought at Farmer's Ranch Market), we stiffed our resolve with a Greenvalley Manhattan—Bourbon, bitters and homemade cherry vodka—and started peeling.
Our starting point was the first written reference to sweet preserves, quince preserved in honey, recorded by Pliny in his Natural History during the first century AD. Pliny, alas, afforded the preparation just a passing mention, so we don't have a recipe per se. However, some three hundred years later, Palladius wrote out two techniques for preserving quince in honey, and in her wonderful 1977 cookbook Le temps des confitures, Misette Godard adapts the ancient recipes for the modern kitchen.
Here's what she has to say about quince, in my own translation:
"Quince comes to us from Persia and the Caucuses, but it has been cultivated in Europe since very ancient times. The three earliest known recipes for preserves are for quince. This can be explained no doubt by the fact that quince can't be eaten raw and that the fresh fruit keeps poorly. Today it continues to be one of the fruits for which we find the greatest number of recipes. Whatever may be one's opinion of fruit preserved in honey, we should give due credit to these first preserves....
Quince in honey has a very strong taste. The pepper gives it a certain piquancy more appreciated by adults than by children."
Willy and I diverged from Madame Godard's extremely detailed recipe only in adding a bit more water than she does to thin the honey into a liquid syrup. What follows is our adaptation of Madame Godard's adaptation of Palladius's ancient preparation.
CONFITURE DE COINGS AU MIEL (QUINCE PRESERVED IN HONEY)
5 lbs quince
3 lbs honey
3 cups water
freshly cracked black pepper
1 Peel and quarter quinces. Cut out the woody core and any stony bits. Slice quarters lengthwise as thinly as possible. Weigh the prepared fruit. You should have about 3 pounds.
2 Combine honey and water in a preserving pan and slowly heat until the two liquids blend into a uniform syrup. Add quince slices to the pot and gently press them into the syrup.
3 Return to a boil, then lower the flame to maintain a steady simmer. Skim any foam that rises. Periodically turn the fruit over in the syrup, being careful not to break the slices.
4 After perhaps 30 minutes of simmering, the quinces will soften and turn pale pink. Add a sprinkling of pepper with 5 or 6 grinds of the pepper mill.
5 With more cooking, perhaps 45 minutes total, the quince slices will turn uniformly pink and translucent. The slices will be pliable to the touch and yielding to the tooth, and they will have lost the astringent edge of the raw quince.
6 When the quinces are fully cooked, carefully spoon them into half-pint jars, pour in syrup and settle them by shaking and nudging with a skewer to insure that there are no air pockets. Top up with syrup, leaving 1/2" head space. Wipe rims and seal, then process jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
While this first batch of quinces was cooking in honey, Willy and I weighed out five more pounds of quinces for jelly.
To be continued later....check back for more info on making quince jelly with rose geranium and—ta-dah!—the most delicious membrillo you can imagine....
Reader Comments (6)
I am in the midst of a quince-o-rama myself, so it was great to check out your post. Looking forward to more!
I have some lovely quince sitting on my counter waiting to be used. I chopped to substitute for part of the apples in some mincemeat today, but I'm not sure that it's flavor was not wasted in something with all of those other flavors going on.
I have quince envy! I was checking them out at my market last Saturday and recoiled in dismay when I noted their price: $3 apiece.
Hi Amanda --
halloo from Greenvalley.
I can sympathize -- one of my local "gourmet" markets also had small quince for $3 apiece (equivalent of maybe $6 per pound). I grumblingly passed them by all fall, until i finally found more quince (for $1.69/lb) at Farmers Ranch Market, which has a large Eastern European and Persian clientele. i'm not sure where you live, but perhaps you could check out an "ethnic" market, any place servicing Old World immigrant communities. my friend Beatrice, who's from Mexico, also tells me that Hispanic markets will often have quince, since membrillo is hugely popular in Mexico and parts of Central America.
or maybe it's time to plant a quince tree in the yard -- that's what i'm doing next spring.
thanks for your comment -- and good luck finding quinces -- they really are worth it.
best
kevin west
oh, I'm so jealous. The only place I've been able to find quince here, it was $3 EACH. Not per pound, FOR EACH FRUIT. ;_;
Thanks for the reminder that canning can be sentimental work. I learned to can from a dear friend who died too young from cancer, but I have her canning kettle and other canning equipment, so every time I make jam, I feel her with me in the kitchen. It's lovely and bittersweet and touching, all at the same time.