Day 5 – The wonderful forbidden fruit

Day 5 - The wonderful forbidden fruit

Is there someone who doesn’t like quinces? They are one of the autumn’s beauties, despite their knobby, not so delicate, with an irregular shape and often a gray fuzz — especially when the fruit has been picked underripe. It’s also tough and you have to sculpt your way around it if you want to eat it. Still the quince jam is one of my favorites, besides plum jam. Here are a few #didyouknow facts about this weird but tasty fruit called quinces or “gutuie” in Romanian:

– revered since antiquity, quinces are still treasured all over the globe. With their high pectin content, quinces lend themselves to jellies, pastes and preserves.

– the word marmalade derives from the Portuguese name for quince: “marmelo”.

– the quince is native to the Caucasus and northern Persia, but cultivation spread to the eastern Mediterranean basin.

– many suppose that the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden was a quince and not the apples.

– in Greek legend Helen of Troy bribed Paris to award a quince to Aphrodite as the prize in a beauty contest, starting the Trojan War.