Apples on a stick, A quince on a fence

From: Rick McCallister
Message: 50927
Date: 2007-12-16

This is from the Wikipedia article on Quince

The fruit was known to the Akkadians, who called it
supurgillu [2]; Arabic ????? safarjal = "quinces"
(collective plural). The modern name originated in the
14th century as a plural of quoyn, via Old French
cooin from Latin cotoneum malum / cydonium malum,
ultimately from Greek kydonion malon "Kydonian apple"
(in the figurative sense, similar to pomodoro -
Italian word for tomato literally meaning "apple of
gold", pomme de terre - the French word for potato,
literally meaning "apple of the ground", and the
classical "golden apple"). The quince tree is native
to Iran, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Albania, Macedonia,
Greece, and Bulgaria, but the Greeks grafted from a
superior strain from ancient Kydonia, now Khania, a
port in Crete, whence both the common and
better-preserved genus name. The Lydian name for the
fruit was kodu.[citation needed]
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 for us, 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. This interesting fruit can also be
eaten cooked or raw. They are a good source of vitamin c.


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