Tib; Japonica that Juts beers our delight each spring, starring the front of the cottage with flowers that are like so many glowing rubies, failed la this year, pulling forth only et few blooms, and now—unaccountably—the tree is covered with an excellent fruit crop. We have never had such handsome " quinces" before and we have watched them during the past six weeks flushing -from green to a soft rose and then mellowing into gold.
Now comes the time to experiment according to Gerard, and the question is whether to make Japonica Jelly or to try his famous Coriniat which, he maintains, " is good and profitable to strengthen the stomach that it may retain and keep the meat therein main it be perfectly digested." To make this most useful conserve one should, he tells us: " take fake Quinces, pairs them, cut them in pieces and cast away the cure, then put unto every pound of Quinces a pound of Sugar and to every Pound of Sugar a pinte of water. These must be boiled together over a sill fire till they be very soft, then let It be strained or rather rubbed through a strainer or rot hairy Siva, which is better, and then set it over the fire to butte againe untill it be stiffs, and so box it up, and at it cooleth put thereto a little Ruse water and a few graines of muske mingled together which will give a goodly taste to the Cotinlat."
THERE are, apparently, many
other " excellent dainty and wholesorrut Confections and such like Conceits" to make • front quinces, but the simplest. of these, after the Cotiniat, seems to be marmalade, and as this takes less sugar than the Cotiniat and is less trouble than the Jelly we shall probably try this with our Japonica crop.
Gerard gives this recipe: " Take whole Quinces and boils them in water until they be as soft as a scalded codling or apple, then pill off the skin and cut off the flesh arid stamp it in a stone snorter, then straine it as you did the Cotiniat; afterward put it in a pan to dry, but not to seeth at all, and unto every pound of the flesh of quinces put three quarters of a pound of sugar, and in the cooling you may put in rose water and a little muske." It will be doubly satisfactory (If the expertMent is a success) to know that we are eating in the dull days of winter the fruit of one of our first harbingers of Spring.
Julian