Medlar

Bletted flesh is basically apple butter; fat is what makes a spoonful of it a dessert.

High pectin and hard malic acid. Add the sugar and the jelly sets like glass.

Warm aldehydes over date-brown flesh; the spice is already implied in the fruit.

Almost no acid left after bletting; the jelly tastes muddy without a correction.

Both taste half-fermented already; the spirit picks up the winey note in the pulp.

Sharp salt against brown sweetness; the jelly does what quince paste does, softer.

Eugenol against a fruit that already smells slightly of decay in a good way.

Dark sweet jelly against iron; medieval England did this and was not wrong.

Tannin and oil under date-sweet pulp; both are hedgerow autumn, same fortnight.

Blue salt and half-rotted sweetness; two things improved by controlled decay.

Bletted fruit sweetens the braise the way a date would, but tastes of forest.

Roast furans and brown fruit sugar; the jelly starts tasting like a reduction.

Oxidised nut and bletted date; two flavours that only exist because of time.