Over on the gourmet group on cix ((I couldn’t possibly call myself a gourmet, I’m almost entirely gourmand, but cix:food hardly ever seems to have anything in it)) someone has posted a link to this delightful set of recipes for quinces.

I love the writing and the spelling in this highlighted passage:

Take the kernells out of eight great Quinces, and boile them in a quart of spring water, till it come to a pinte, then put into it a quarter of a pinte of Rosewater, and one pound of fine Sugar, and so let it boile till you see it come to bee of a deepe colour: then take a drop, and drop it on the bottome of a sawcer, then let it run through a gelly bagge into a bason, then set it in your bason upon a chafing dish of coles to keep it warm, then take a spoone, and fill your boxes as full as you please, and when they be colde cover them: and if you please to printe it in moldes, you must have moldes made to the bigness of your boxe, and wet your moldes with Rosewater, and so let it run into your mold, and when it is colde turne it off into your boxes. If you wette your moldes with water, your gelly will fall out of them.

… is really making me regret not having a gelly bagge of mine own.

Or, indeed, any quinces.

The closest I’ve ever been to quinces was a jar of jam I brought back from France. On the way back from any driving holiday, we always stop off at a hypermarket and load up on things that are cheaper or nicer in France than in the UK, so often end up with car fulls of wine, coffee filters and Bonne Maman jam. One of those, in recent times, has been gèlé de coings, which was a sort of pale orange, clear jelly, which, to my gourmand palate, didn’t really taste of all that much. It was sweet, light, almost lavender-y in taste. The current ones on the go are chestnut and Normandy apple jelly with calvados from a farm-producer called Le Clos d’Orval but if I’m honest, my pedestrian tastes prefer… strawberry.