The Quince Tree

When we moved into our house almost three years ago (can you believe it?), we were pleased to find a pretty little tree in our front yard near the driveway. In the fall, it made a fuzzy, greenish-yellow fruit. In our excitement to have a fruit-bearing tree we hastily looked it up in one of our garden books. We discovered that we had a quince tree. The only thing I knew about quince at the time was that some people believe it was the type of fruit which Adam and Eve partook in the Garden of Eden. Where they got this idea, I don't know. And if it was a quince tree in the Garden, why do men have an Adam's apple and women have an Eve's peach. And what kind of tree grows apples and peaches at the same time. The point is this only matters if you are fond of bringing up obscure references in Sunday School which have the effect of completely derailing the lesson. Not nice!

We learned that quinces are "too astringent" to eat fresh. I looked up astringent in the dictionary and one definition said astringent was an adjective meaning "biting or harsh." The word could also be used to describe a substance that causes soft tissue in the body to constrict. Yeah...I want to put that in my mouth. Pretty sure there is lots of soft tissue in there.

Anyway, quinces can be used in jelly and chutney. Now I don't know about you, but I make chutney all the time. Um...yeah. What exactly is chutney? All I know is it's one of those things you read on the menu in a fancy restaurant but never ask the waiter what it is for fear of sounding ignorant. You know what I'm talking about.

Our book also said ripe quinces in a bowl make your whole kitchen smell nice so we use them for that. Apparently they are also a great source of pectin and can be used to firm up jelly so if your into that kind of thing, come to our house in September and we'll give you a bowl of lovely over-ripe quinces that don't smell good anymore. Nice!


I have been taking lots of pictures with my digital camera lately in an effort to improve my skills. It seems like almost anybody can take a great picture with the amazing digital cameras and editing software out there (excepting me of course). I blame my less-than-professional pictures on an older digital camera and shaky hands. (Whatever you've got to tell yourself, right?) The first picture shows our quince tree just as it was getting buds this summer. The next pictures show the pretty pink flowers the tree gets later in spring. I took these just after a rainstorm and you can see the water droplets in the last picture. Cool, huh?