Student Essays and Quince

Its been a long week. I had to finish marking the first round of essays my students produced. The topics were on Thomas Hobbes. On the whole, it was a rewarding set of essays. The students seemed to really understand what was afoot regarding human nature and the properties of Sovereignty.

Last year at this time, I was very disappointed with the work of the students, then in their first year. The same group one year later has really transformed. Yes, there are still some stragglers and some new students who haven't really been forced into good essay writing habits, but the average marks were quite fine. I am proud of these students and I hope their improvements continue.

All that being said, marking eighty essays all roughly on the same subject is fatiguing. I needed escape from Exeter, and have traveled to London for the weekend.

I've also got a lot of cooking done today. On the stove has been oatmeal, lemon ginger tea, quince butter, and home made pizza sauce. I used the pizza sauce with some fresh dough I made to bake supreme pizza with sausage, peppers, chillies, mushrooms, anchovies, and thin sliced onions, and fresh mozerella cheese.

The most fascinating item in this list has to be the quince butter. Before today, I had no idea what a quince was. I was at the Camden Town Market (which is really good for anyone in that area of London). In the fruit stand two several crates of golden yellow fruit called me. They looked in form a lot like apples. The blossom and stem end were clearly just like those of the apple or pear. But the shape was a little wobbly and the smell was different than either pear or apple. I would describe it as something fragrant and tropical - hints of pear and apple mixed with a little mango, peach, and apricot, with something unique and unencountered in any of this litany of fruit. They were only 2 for 1 Pound, so I couldn't resist the lure of the unknown.

I was lucky, really. The fruit seller was happy someone knew what the fruit were. I said I didn't really, but I guessed they were relatives of the apple. That was about right, but the proper name of this fruit was the quince. The man told me they needed to be cooked to be eaten. They could be baked or candied, and many people made jam out of them. Vaguely remembering what apple butter was all about, I resolved to make some quince butter.

There is plenty of information about the quince and its history here. Ahreum recognized the fruit as well, but in Korea the aren't eaten at all but used for air freshening. I can understand this, as their fragrance is quite pungent.

On to the recipe.


Quince Butter

So in the midst of waiting for my pizza dough to rise and cooking down my pizza sauce, I skinned, cored and chopped two quince. I put them into a sauce pan with probably 1 cup (I didn't measure, I just pored in from the bag) of golden granulated sugar about 1 tablespoon of chopped ginger, a squeeze or two of lemon juice, and maybe two tablespoons or so of unsalted butter. I got the whole thing cooking and kept it at a low boil until the quince were nicely broken down and the juice was reduced. It should look like a jam basically. This took about 20 - 30 minutes.

The taste of the quince in this conserve is really fantastic. It has a flavor which is reminiscent of pears and apples but it is really quite unique. If you happen to run into this unique fruit, give it a try. I think it would also make a very cool kind of pie, made just as with apple pie.