MEDLARS - Growing & Cooking

At Eastgate in rural North Norfolk, Jane Steward is reviving the medlar, an old English fruit which was once Britain's sweet treat. Her trees are alive with colour for much of the year: white and yellow flowers in the summer, green leaves that turn to gold and russet. Grafted onto quince A rootstock, and helped by local honey bees, these are trees with prolific fruit.

Alongside the Nottingham variety of medlars, Jane has established a national culinary collection on her six-acre smallholding. Varieties include Breda, Dutch, Westerveld, Macrocarpa, Royal, Bredase Reus, Flanders Giant, Iranian medlars. Her book on medlars will have over 30 recipes alongside a myriad of information on this forgotten fruit.

Jane Steward grows medlar trees, and makes medlar jelly each year. Her first medlar tree was a wedding present, and she planted it where there was once a fruit farm of 2,000 apple and pear trees. She and her husband revived the old fruit farm in the 21st century, replacing apples and pears with many medlar trees. She has won awards for her medlar jelly which she sells under the Eastgate Larder name. Jane curates the UK’s National Collection of medlar trees which she grows in Norfolk.

Medlars orginally came from the Caucasus region, Turkey, Georgia and the Balkans. They were well known by the Romans who probably brought them to England, and were growing in England by the Middle Ages; seeds have been found in Hampshire and other places.

After the first world war, the popularity of  medlar fruit waned, and it became almost forgotten. Jane Steward has been a huge force in the revival of this ancient fruit. Now, medlar jelly, medlar cheese, syrups and chutneys are available, and best of all, if you find the fruit at a Turkish food shop, you can wait until they ripen, and make your own with the recipes in Jane’s book.