Quince

Funny fruit the quince. I love it with cheese, in fact thats how I discovered it and the only way I eat it on an afternoon platter.  Not that I'm up myself but a little French St Agur Blue and a lot of French Fromage d'Affinois put together with a local  Keinlworth Premium Vintage makes a perfect tasting platter for me.

Now back to that quince - the fruit is yellow when ripe yet still feels hard. When it is cut open the flesh is white like an apple that will go brown in the open air like an apple also does.

To cook it you need to leave aside about 4 hours. Initially is 30 minutes cooking with a little water to soften it then put it in the food processor and blend it smooth. Then its back in the pot with a bloody lot of sugar  and let it cook for around another 3 and half hours.

Now here is the tricky bit, quince paste is red but the fruit of the quince is white. Only when you cook it does the fruit start to turn a shade of red. Apparently the cooking breaks the bond between the pigment in the tannins so as the cooking time passes the fruit goes from the white, through yellow to red - or at least a reddish colour. I'm yet to get mine to deep dark red I've seen in shops but my efforts do have the same flavours.

Probably not my favourite thing to cook given the length of time taken and the amount of sugar added to get the end result.