{{nutritionalvalue | name = Quince, raw | water = 83.8 g | kJ = 238 | protein = .4 g | fat = .10 g | carbs = 15.3 g | sugars = 12.53 g | fiber = 1.9 g | sodium_mg = 4 | potassium_mg = 197 | vitA_ug = 40 | vitC_mg = 15.0 | niacin_mg = 0.2 | folate_ug = 8 | iron_mg = 0.7 | phosphorus_mg = 17 | magnesium_mg = 8 | calcium_mg = 8 | vitB6_mg = 0.04 | source_usda = 1 | note = Quince, raw | right = 1 }} The quince (), or Cydonia oblonga, is the sole member of the genus Cydonia and native to warm-temperate southwest Asia in the Caucasus region. It is a small deciduous tree, growing 5–8 m tall and 4–6 m wide, related to apples and pears, and like them has a pome fruit, which is bright golden yellow when mature, pear-shaped, 7–12 cm long and 6–9 cm broad.
The immature fruit is green with dense grey-white pubescence, most of which rubs off before maturity in late autumn when the fruit changes colour to yellow with hard, strongly perfumed flesh. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, 6–11 cm long, with an entire margin and densely pubescent with fine white hairs. The flowers, produced in spring after the leaves, are white or pink, 5 cm across, with five petals.
Quince is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Brown-tail, Bucculatrix bechsteinella, Bucculatrix pomifoliella, Coleophora cerasivorella, Coleophora malivorella, Green Pug and Winter Moth.
Four other species previously included in the genus Cydonia are now treated in separate genera. These are the Chinese Quince Pseudocydonia sinensis, a native of China, and the three flowering quinces of eastern Asia in the genus Chaenomeles. Another unrelated fruit, the Bael, is sometimes called the "Bengal Quince".
Turkey ranks first in world quince production by producing a quarter of the total world production.
Cultivation of quince may have preceded apple culture, and many references translated to "apple", such as the fruit in Song of Solomon, may have been to a quince. Among the ancient Greeks, the quince was a ritual offering at weddings, for it had come from the Levant with Aphrodite and remained sacred to her. Plutarch reports that a Greek bride would nibble a quince to perfume her kiss before entering the bridal chamber, "in order that the first greeting may not be disagreeable nor unpleasant" (Roman Questions 3.65). It was a quince that Paris awarded Aphrodite. It was for a golden quince that Atalanta paused in her race. The Romans also used quinces; the Roman cookbook of Apicius gives recipes for stewing quince with honey, and even combining them, unexpectedly, with leeks. Pliny the Elder mentioned the one variety, Mulvian quince, that could be eaten raw. Columella mentioned three, one of which, the "golden apple" that may have been the paradisal fruit in the Garden of the Hesperides, has donated its name in Italian to the tomato, pomodoro.
Most varieties of quince are too hard, astringent and sour to eat raw unless 'bletted' (softened by frost and subsequent decay). They are used to make jam, jelly and quince pudding, or they may be peeled, then roasted, baked or stewed. The flesh of the fruit turns red after a long cooking time. The very strong perfume means they can be added in small quantities to apple pies and jam to enhance the flavour. Adding a diced quince to apple sauce will enhance the taste of the applesauce with the chunks of relatively firm, tart quince. The term "marmalade", originally meaning a quince jam, derives from "marmelo," the Portuguese word for this fruit.
The fruit, like so many others, can be used to make a type of wine. Because of its often high acidity which is mainly due to its malic acid content, these wines are, more often than not, sweet dessert wines that are high in alcohol. Quince juice, Quittensaft, is a common drink in Germany, which is also where the saying "A quince for you, a quince for me, quinces we shall eat" is believed to have originated. In the Balkans and elsewhere quince brandy is made. In Carolina in 1709 John Lawson allowed that he was "not a fair judge of the different sorts of Quinces, which they call Brunswick, Portugal and Barbary" but he noted "of this fruit they make a wine or liquor which they call Quince-Drink, and which I approve of beyond any that their country affords, though a great deal of cider and perry is there made, The Quince-Drink most commonly purges."
Varieties of quince, such as 'Kuganskaya', have been developed that do not require cooking and are eaten raw.
In Europe, quinces are commonly grown in central and southern areas where the summers are sufficiently hot for the fruit to fully ripen. They are not grown in large amounts; typically one or two quince trees are grown in a mixed orchard with several apples and other fruit trees: so were they grown in the 18th-century New England colonies, where there was always a quince at the lower corner of the vegetable garden, Ann Leighton notes in records of Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Charlemagne directed that quinces be planted in well-stocked orchards. Quinces are mentioned for the first time in an English text in the later 13th century, though cultivation in England is not very successful due to inadequate summer heat to ripen the fruit fully. Instead Chaenomeles bushes are grown - their smaller fruit is regarded as a good substitute for quinces.
When a baby is born in Slavonia and Croatia, a quince tree is planted as a symbol of fertility, love and life.
In Lebanon, it is called sfarjel and also used to make jam. In Syria, quince is cooked in pomegranate paste (dibs rouman) with shank meat and kibbeh (a middle eastern meat pie with burghul and mince meat) and is called kibbeh safarjalieh. In Pakistan quinces are stewed together with sugar until they turn bright red. The resulting stewed quince, called Muraba is then preserved in jars and eaten like jam.
Quince was also introduced to the New World and also Australia, in temperate states where in some locations it has grown wild, and New Zealand. It has become rare in North America due to its susceptibility to fireblight disease caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora. They are still widely grown in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Almost all of the quinces in North American specialty markets come from Argentina. In Latin America the gel-like, somewhat adhesive substance surrounding the seeds was used to shape and style hair.
In Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela the membrillo, as the quince is called in Spanish, is cooked into a reddish jelly-like block or firm reddish paste known as dulce de membrillo. It is then eaten in sandwiches and with cheese, traditionally manchego cheese, or accompanying fresh curds. In Portugal, a similar sweet is called marmelada. It is also produced and consumed in Hungary where it is called "quince cheese". The sweet and floral notes of carne de membrillo (quince meat) contrast nicely with the tanginess of the cheese. Boiled quince is also popular in desserts such as the murta con membrillo that combines ugni molinae with quince. Similar dishes exist in Dalmatia and Croatia.
Used as a rootstock for grafted plants, quince has the property of dwarfing the growth of pears, of forcing them to produce more precociously, and relatively more fruit-bearing branches, instead of vegetative growth, and of accelerating the maturity of the fruit.
In the Canary Islands and some places in South America a quince is used to play an informal beach toss-and-swim game, usually among young teens. When mixed with salt water a mature quince will turn its sour taste to sweet. The game is played by throwing a quince into the sea. All players race to catch the quince and whoever catches it, takes one bite and tosses the quince again, then the whole process gets repeated until the quince is fully eaten.
In the Alsace region of France and the Valais region of Switzerland liqueur de coing is made from quince and used as a digestif.
Quince can also be used as a tea additive to mainly green tea, giving it a rather sweetish taste and scent.
In Iran and other parts of the Middle East, the dried pits of the fruit are used to treat sore throat and to relieve cough. The pits are soaked in water; the viscous product is then drunk like cough medicine. It is commonly used for children, as it is alcohol free.
In Malta, a jam is made from the fruit (ġamm ta' l-isfarġel). According to local tradition, a teaspoon of the jam dissolved in a cup of boiling water relieves intestinal discomfort.
In Iran, quince is called beh (ﺑﻪ) and is used raw or in stews and jam, and the seeds are used as a remedy for pneumonia and lung disease. In parts of Afghanistan, the quince seeds are collected and boiled and then ingested to combat pneumonia.
Category:Fruit Category:Accessory fruit Category:Maleae Category:Medicinal plants Category:Greek loanwords Category:Plants used in bonsai Category:Monotypic plant genera
af:Kweper ab:Абиа ar:سفرجل az:Adi heyva be:Айва be-x-old:Айва bs:Dunja bg:Дюля ca:Codonyer cs:Kdouloň obecná da:Kvæde de:Quitte dsb:Pšawa kwitula el:Κυδωνιά es:Cydonia eo:Cidonio eu:Irasagarrondo fa:به fr:Cognassier fur:Codognâr ga:Cainche gv:Quinsh (billey) ko:마르멜로 hsb:Prawy kwětlowc hr:Dunja io:Quingo os:Къомси it:Cydonia oblonga he:חבוש ka:კომში kk:Айва lbe:Бигь lt:Paprastoji cidonija hu:Birs mk:Дуња my:ချဉ်စော်ကားသီး nah:Membrillocuahuitl nl:Kweepeer ja:マルメロ ce:Хьайба no:Kvede pcd:Counhiasse pl:Pigwa pospolita pt:Marmeleiro ro:Gutui ru:Айва sc:Cydonia oblonga sq:Ftoi scn:Cydonia vulgaris simple:Quince sl:Kutina sr:Дуња sh:Dunja fi:Kvitteni sv:Kvitten tg:Биҳӣ tr:Ayva uk:Айва vi:Mộc qua Kavkaz wa:Poerî d' cwin zh:榲桲This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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