The Tree Log

I love listening to In Our Time, possibly THE most eclectic - maybe even eccentric?- show on the radio. Melvin Bragg wrangled the various guests for over 1,000 episodes and so his dulcet tones are in almost all the episodes. However, since he retired it's been chaired by Misha Glenny. If you've never listened before, there are episodes on everything from Aphra Behn (playwright and spy) to  The Mariana Trench. You can learn about Prayer, The Gothic movement, The Enlightenment in Scotland and St Hildegard of Bingen and every single thing in between!  There's an episode on the evolution of trees , if you want to listen to it.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a medlar in a fruit shop these days. To be honest, you'd be hard-pressed to find a fruit shop these days. But I am reliably informed that we have been eating this weird-looking fruit since the Romans introduced it to Europe 2,000 years ago (1) until it fell out of favour in the 1950s. Medlars - looking not at all bum-like The reason that the medlar was popular for 2,000 years is certainly not because of its user-friendly properties. You don't just pick it off the tree and eat unless you have teeth like a horse and guts that can withstand the onslaught. No, you pick the fruit in October and November when the little brown globes are about 2 inches in diameter and as hard as bricks and then you have to carefully store them (crate of hay or sawdust) for a month until they become VERY ripe, in the process known as 'bletting'. This was a term invented in the 19th century (derived from the French verb  blettir - to become over-ripe) to descri...