Quinces
Quinces are fruit in the Rose family, related to apples, pears, and hawthorns. They have an aromatic flavor and are best eaten cooked. Like apples and pears, the fruit stores well and can keep for at least a couple months after picking in mid to late fall.
Today, quinces are much less popular than they once were, which is unfortunate, given their excellent flavor.
Species and varieties
Common quince
Common quince (Cydonia oblonga)
Flowering quince
Flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa)
Japanese quince (Chaenomeles japonica)
‘Rasa’
’Darius’
‘Rondo’
Chaenomeles cathayensis
Chinese quince (Pseudocydonia sinensis)
Common quince
The common quince (Cydonia oblonga) is native to a region in the world with a lot of similarity to the Pacific Northwest, from where a large number of well-adapted plants come from. The common quince is native to western Asia, in an area around the Caucasus Mountains and Northern Iran. Its cultivation dates back at least to Mesopotamian times and it became a widespread fruit in the Mediterranean during Antiquity. From there, the fruit spread throughout most of Europe, Asia, and the Americas, though the biggest producers of quince remain the countries in their native region.
Our climate is highly suitable to growing quinces and they should do well in most of the Pacific Northwest. The trees are quite drought-tolerant but can also handle our wet winter weather well, the perfect combination for our region. They prefer our dry summer weather; they can struggle with fungal diseases in areas with high heat and humidity.
Although it is generally a minor crop and not commonly sold in stores, you can often find quinces at farmer’s markets and local produce suppliers in fall.
There are a few cultivars which are supposed to be edible raw, but this seems to be most feasible in climates where the summer is long and hot, allowing the fruit to ripen to an even higher degree. It appears that warmer climates such as Southern California are better suited than ours to grow such varieties.
Cooking with quinces
The fruit can vary in shape from apple- to pear-like. They are hard, tart, and astringent otherwise, but extremely aromatic. The smell alone is one of my favorite things about them.
Quinces require cooking to be palatable. Cooking softens them up and removes the astringency. Once cooked, the fruit turns a reddish color due to interactions that occur between anthocyanins and tannins found in the quinces. The color is water-soluble so it will also color the cooking liquid. Quinces also contain high levels of pectin and were commonly used as a source of it before the advent of packaged pectin.
Quinces are traditionally used to make jams, jellies, and preserves. The cooked fruit is also eaten; in Turkey, cooked quince is served with “kaymak”, a sort of clotted cream. Quince paste, also called quince “cheese”, is popular throughout the northern Mediterranean and in Latin America. In the US, the Spanish version, “dulce de membrillo”, is the best-known iteration of this product, which is often eaten with cheese. Quince are also commonly made into liqueur or distilled into brandy.
Because the aroma of quinces is so strong, you can use the quince fruit and save the skins and cores to flavor other things, like syrup.
Flowering quinces
There are a handful of plants related to the quince, Cydonia oblonga, that originate in eastern Asia. Their common names, either “flowering quince”, “Chinese quince”, or “Japanese quince” are often used interchangeably.
The flowering quince, Chaenomeles speciosa, is appreciated in gardening as an ornamental shrub. It blooms in late winter and early spring and often has bright red or pink flowers. They’re found all over Portland but are easiest to recognize when they bloom. The plant is from China and Korea.
Because the flowers are selected for ornamental purposes, cultivars that are double-flowering (have extra sets of petals) are often sterile and do not produce fruit. Be sure to check if you’re buying a plant for fruit.
There are three other very similar but less common species of flowering quince in the Chaenomeles genus, all with edible fruit: C. thibetica, C. cathayensis, and C. japonica. The first two are from China. Chaenomeles japonica, the Japanese quince, is native to Japan and is the more common of these three.
Recently, a breeding program was undertaken in Latvia to select Japanese quince for their fruit rather than their ornamental qualities. The program, the first of its kind, has so far resulted in three improved cultivars: ‘Rasa’, ’Darius’, and ‘Rondo’.
The Chinese quince, Pseudocydonia sinensis, is a small tree that is closely related to Chaenomeles and can be treated the same for our purposes. It has fewer ornamental flowers so is less common in horticulture.
Cooking with flowering quinces
All of the flowering quinces produce edible fruit that ripens in mid-fall. The fruit is very similar to Cydonia oblonga fruit; it is also highly aromatic, tart, and astringent, requiring cooking to be made palatable. They are used in jellies, preserves, tea, and liqueur. If the fruit is left to freeze on the shrub, they will soften up enough to squeeze; the juice is strongly acidic and may be a useful substitute for citrus or verjus. You can also pop the fruit in the freezer to get a similar effect.
