Medlar : The medlar (also called cul de chien in Lorraine) is the fruit of the common medlar (family of Rosaceae – Botanical name: Mespilus germanica L.), a fruit tree from cold countries. This winter fruit, brown with five large seeds, is eaten after the first frosts of autumn, once overripe.
It should not be confused with the Japanese medlar, a yellow fruit harvested in spring in warmer regions.
Etymology: Its name, mesle in old French, comes from Latin mespilum, -a, word borrowed from Greek mespilon ; this word would be formed from the Greek words “mesos” and “pilos”, ball, in reference to the hemispherical shape of this fruit.
Description of the medlar: It is a small fruit 3 to 5 cm in diameter. Formerly common, this fleshy fruit, shaped like a top depressed at the top and topped with the five persistent teeth of the calyx, is a false drupe (in fact, a piridion): the flesh surrounds five stones. These containhydrocyanic acid, but are sufficiently hard and waterproof to pose no risk of poisoning. There is a variety of medlar without a pit.
Not to be confused with the Japanese loquat or bibace (also written “bibass”), fruit of the Japanese Loquat, which is a yellow-colored fruit, with a single stone, very juicy and tasty, with a tangy taste. It is harvested in April-May, only in the orange growing zone.
See as well Medlar under Mouth slang.
Uses of medlar : Originally from the Caucasus and Armenia, its consumption is attested from Antiquity to the Middle Ages in south-eastern Europe.
Medlar is a winter fruit. It has the particularity of not being consumable when ripe, because it is too hard and too acerbic, because of the richness in tannins of the mesocarp. It can only be consumed after greening. The harvest, in fact, takes place at full maturity, generally after the first frosts. Greening consists of placing the fruits on a bed of straw for around two weeks. A natural fermentation then occurs which modifies the chemical composition of the mesocarp and softens it. The fruit overripe is sweet, but does not contain sucrose, only a mixture of glucose and fructose (inverted sugar) and a little alcohol. Medlar tastes a bit vinous which is close to that of the apple.
She can be use nature lovers, with or without the skin which is perfectly edible, but which may seem a little coriaceous, because of his thickness and remains of down which cover it. On the other hand, like the apple, we must not consume the glitches. It can also be cooked in jam or compote, or macerated in alcohol to obtain ratafia.
Quote from François Laroque in his Shakespeare Lovers' Dictionary (Éditions Plon, 2016): Medlar: The name of medlar like medlar is said meldar in English which allows Shakespeare to make numerous puns on medler its phonetic twin, from the verb to meddle “meddle in what doesn’t concern you”, which means “the go-between”, the one who sticks his nose in the affairs of others. For Mercurio in Romeo and Juliet, as in the eyes of the jester Lucio, in Measure for measure, this rotten consumed fruit symbolizes for him the woman's sex, as in the ribald tirade. In his 1611 French-English dictionary, lexicographer Randle Cotgrave translated it as open-arse, literally "open ass", which effectively makes it possible to explain the obscene allusions of Mercurio for whom love is not very platonic.
See as well Medlar under Mouth slang.