Can quinces be eaten raw? How do you know when they're ripe? How do you prepare them?

If the quinces are not completely yellow, store them at room temperature until they are fully ripened, yellow all over, and emit a pleasant aroma. They should then be used quickly or they will become mealy.





If you don't plan to use the ripe quince immediately, then store them in the refrigerator where they will keep up to two weeks. However, it's best to store them apart from apples and pears because their penetrating aroma may affect the other fruits.





Raw





Unless the sweet variety of quinces are available, they are too acidic and astringent to be eaten raw.





Cooked


Quince has the firmness of a hard winter squash, so be sure to use a large, firm chef's knife to cut it into halves, quarters, or slices. Peeling works well with a vegetable peeler or a small paring knife. Remove the core with a small, very firm paring knife.





A slice or two of peeled quince added to apples or pears while they cook will add appealing flavor and aroma to the dish.





Quince makes an excellent fruit sauce similar to applesauce. Though the flesh is white when raw, it turns a delicate pink when cooked. Peel a few quinces, slice them with a very firm knife, and remove the seeds. Cook them in a small amount of water with plenty of sweetener of choice until they reach a pulpy consistency like applesauce. Mash or puree in a food processor, and serve as a dessert or accompaniment to savory dishes.





Quince sauce makes an excellent companion to potato latkes (pancakes).





A modern adaptation of Quince Cheese involves coarsely chopping quinces and oranges and cooking them in a small amount of water until they become pulpy. Next they are strained, combined with sugar, and simmered for almost 2 hours. A drop or two of orange blossom water or rose water is added. Then, the mixture is turned into an oiled bowl, sealed, and stored for about three months. The "cheese" is then unmolded onto a platter and served as an accompaniment to savory dishes.

Can quinces be eaten raw? How do you know when they're ripe? How do you prepare them?
Quince is another fruit related to the apple and pear and the rest of the Rose family. They are a highly aromatic fruit, shaped like large, lumpy, yellow pears. Unripe fruit have a downy skin, while ripened fruit have the smooth texture of its relatives. Raw quinces are inedible, but they make excellent natural air fresheners. For instance, if a quince is kept in the glove compartment of a car, it will shrivel but will not rot, and will fill the car with a delicious aroma for up to six months.





Quinces are never eaten raw, only cooked. Its flesh is hard with many seeds and too sour and astringent to eat raw, but its delicate flavour develops into something quite delicious if stewed with a sweetener. In order to help peel the skin easier, the quince can be parboiled for about ten minutes. When quinces are cooked, the heat and the acids in the fruit convert the colourless leucoanthocyanin pigments to red anthocyanins, thus turning its flesh from pale yellow to a pink or red. Cooking also transforms the strong unpleasant astringent taste to a more mellow flavour, halfway between that of an apple and a pear. Because of their high pectin content, found mainly in the skin, quinces make an excellent jelly. In fact, the Portuguese name for the quince is the origin of the English word "marmalade", a type of preserve originally made from this fruit.





In Persian cuisine, quinces and other sour fruits are often cooked together with meats. This combination is also found in Morocco and such parts of eastern Europe as Romania, as well as in Spanish cooking. However, it is Turkey where the quince is most often used. They distinguish the various kinds from "ekmek ayvasi", which is a roundish, yellow, sweet quince, and "limon ayvasi", which is larger, oblong, green variety with a sour flavour. The most common use for them in Britain is in the making of pastries, and are often added with apple to bring out a pinkish colour and an interesting flavour to the dish. Quince preserves were popular until quite recently, but remain of little interest to Americans. Several oriental quinces (genus Chaenomeles) are available in China and Japan. One variety is the Japonica quince, which is cultivated in Japan. These hard yellowish fruits are virtually inedible raw, but can be cooked and used like quinces. Their aroma is less intense, but they make good additions to pies and tarts, jellies, and quince cheese.
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