I was given a couple of yogurt tubs of these a few years ago, fully soft and ripe.

By the time the pips are dug out and the "blossom" end is removed, a little over half the fruit remains.

Removing the pips is like removing peanut pieces from chunky-style peanut butter: messy.

This went, peelings and all, into the auger-type juicer where it ground the peelings and pulp to a

smoothish consistency, I used it for a sandwich spread: peanut butter-and-medlar sandwiches.

Medlars (Mespilus germanica) are one fruit that I still haven't tried here.  I've always been curious about them.  ...Way back in college, in Latin class (--the one in which I met my wife), we had a class field trip to the Getty Museum in, perhaps, Malibu (?), California.  Within a recreated Roman atrium, there was a medlar tree, which, at a given point in time during the Roman Empire, would have been thoroughly appropriate.  [--I have to admit that one of my takeaways from that visit was the hilarious number of items inscribed in Latin as curses against the Punics.  [Such animosity! ...Some people seem to hold perpetual grudges through generations....]

In retrospect, I find it a bit surprising that I've never had a chance to taste one over the intervening 35+ years.  I definitely want to get a couple of them into our yard.  I get the impression that they are rather smallish trees to begin with, and so the clones need to be grafted to something like Pyrus OHxF 97 (vigorous full-sized).  For those of you who have them in cultivation, do you recommend any particular cultivars?  I know that there don't seem to be many varieties available, but I'd be curious about variety recommendations from those who have grown them.  Thanks for any suggestions!

Reinettes.

I also have heard hawthorn is conducive to medlar grafting.

once asked Karen T (orchard manager when I joined Home Orchard Society) which was “best”, she suggested since they’re all pretty similar (in her opinion) that big’ uns probably best bang for the buck for processing into jam, wine or other ferments. Nottingham would fall in that category.
 A few years later I had the opportunity to explore many big and small varieties, occasioned after 2 consecutive fruit shows that contained not less than 2dozen different, from the Corvallis repository. I absconded with nearly all the medlar left after the closings. A month or two and a half later I found, for my taste, fresh eating in the work van -after or between jobs for refreshment/replenishment, that as they came ripe or well blet, my hands down favorite was a small fruited one. Ka Kheti, wild medlar from Georgia. As I said, small, excellent flavor and texture. Not a dry mouth feel or stringy, as was the case with the majority of the others. I had more than a half dozen samples of each represented, well more in most cases, enough so that I feel I was able to monitor each throughout their considered bletted stage. If I was seriously considering medlar, I’d try to wrangle a scion of that one from the repository.
Different bletting/ripening times seem to have nothing to do with size of the pome variety, from my observation, Ka Kheti of the smaller varieties were later than most of the large varieties. Each of the varieties, handled the same way ‘ripened’ within a range distinct from the others, some overlapping some not, like apples and pears. 

Thanks for the feedback, guys.  --Apparently, just like apples and pears, it isn't the size that matters:  it's the quality, the taste, the pleasurable essence.  That rather conforms to my own taste-testing of fruit varieties over the years.  I've often found that to be the case amid the countless apples.  

Amid the medlars, the largest one that I can think of is called (I think) 'Monstrueuse d'Evreinoff'.  Have any of you tasted it and have a taste comparison with the other available cultivars?  I guess that acquiring at least a couple or three for our yard would be a good idea over the next couple or three years.  I've never tasted a medlar and (--God knows--) I'm sure as heck not getting any younger!  I'll definitely keep 'Ka Kheti' and 'Nottingham' varieties in mind.

Reinettes.

John,

Thanks very much for the post.  There is very definitely a difference between the "bletting" and the "rotting".  The bletting occurs naturally in the great outdoors with the cooling temperatures of the autumn (i.e., usually laying there on the ground, or collected and laid on straw out in the barn or shed...).  Apparently, the bletting medlars resent being put into a warmer environment and decide to just "throw in the towel".  It's a real pity that they can be so persnickety [--I think that's the first time I've typed that word--], but it seems to me comparable to the "trickiness" of collecting and refrigerating different varieties of pears from the trees, and then trying to figure out the right time to bring each one out into a warmer temperature to soften and be edible.

Why do some fruits have to fight us so?!

I guess that, once upon a time (like in the fairytales), people lived differently and had naturally cool sheds or attics where these fruits were stowed.  In our modern world of indoor heating, this kind of screws up the more gentle transition of temperatures.  I figure that we're all on our own in terms of finding the right places around our properties to store fruits to give them "what they insist on".  Tricky!  But I suppose that's were longer-term experience comes into play.

In the good ol' days, these sorts of things came to us naturally because they were handed down from generation to generation because it was already known (for "all" time) how it was done by your father, and your grandfather, and your great-grandfather, etc.  [I won't be-labor the point.]  The 20th century largely destroyed the intergenerational continuity of basic food knowledge as the populace became ever more urbanized and left the rural life in search of "work" and "opportunities".

I'll stop here.  I can see that I'm about to go off on a ranting tangent.

I'm sorry to hear about your rotted medlars.  You definitely have my sympathies!

Reinettes.

[...You used the 'S' word.  Tee-hee!]

Ah, yes.  These cold boring winter nights....

Sounds like you're on the right track with the comparative experimentation, John.  Take notes, mental or otherwise, and you'll gradually get a system down that works.  Do you have kids?  If so, you can pass that well-earned knowledge on to them, unless, of course, they decide that they want to work for Goldman Sachs.

Hey.  You're the one growing the fruits.  Eat 'em and share 'em when they're prime, compost 'em when they're past.  I'm pretty sure that was God's plan.

Reinettes.