If you’ve never heard of a medlar before, chances are you’re not alone. We didn’t even know about them until a few weeks ago when we saw them in an email newsletter from Myers Produce – turns out Scott Farm in Drummerston is growing them.

The medlar comes into season in the winter. And it needs to “blet” (or rot, or ferment, however you want to call it) a little bit before it is yummy. For this reason, medlars have been used as metaphors (kinda inappropriate by today’s standards) by many writers throughout history. Shakespeare wrote about them, Chaucer did too, so did Cervantes. They have a wild flavor, and were once eaten as an after-dinner delicacy alongside madeira.

Out of curiosity (and because of the funny name) we ordered some. We let the medlars “blet” and Martina made an incredible jam out of them. Then we put it on a sandwich with roasted parsnips.

We only have about 300 lbs of medlars (read about how we found this on the blog)! But it’s enough for us to do an extremely limited, 1 week run of the sandwich. If you’re interested in tasting this historic fruit, make sure to get to your local Clover!

(photo found on farecomment.com)