Bletting is a process of softening that certain fleshy
fruits undergo, beyond
ripening.
There are some fruits that are either sweeter after some bletting, such as
sea buckthorn, or for which most varieties can be eaten raw only after bletting, such as
medlars,
persimmons,
quince,
service tree fruit, and
wild service tree fruit (popularly known as ''chequers''). The
rowan or mountain ash fruit must be bletted and cooked to be edible, to break down the toxic
parasorbic acid (hexenollactone) into
sorbic acid.
History
The
English verb ''
to blet'' was
coined by
John Lindley, in his ''Introduction to Botany'' (1835). He derived it from the French ''poire blette'' meaning 'overripe
pear'. "After the period of ripeness", he wrote, "most fleshy fruits undergo a new kind of alteration; their flesh either rots or blets."
In "The Prologe of the Reeves Tale" in
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
's 14th century ''
Tales of Caunterbury'' (lines 3871–3873) the Reeve complains about being old: "But if I fare as dooth an open-ers -- / That ilke fruyt is ever lenger the wers, / Til it be roten in mullok or in stree."
nless I fare as does the fruit of the medlar -- / That same fruit continually grows worse, / Until it is rotten in rubbish or in straw In
Shakespeare's ''
Measure for Measure'', he alluded to bletting when he wrote (IV. iii. 167) "They would have married me to the rotten Medler."
Thomas Dekker also draws a similar comparison in his play ''
The Honest Whore'': "I scarce know her, for the beauty of her cheek hath, like the moon, suffered strange eclipses since I beheld it: women are like medlars – no sooner ripe but rotten." Elsewhere in literature,
D. H. Lawrence dubbed medlars "wineskins of brown morbidity."
There is also an old saying, used in ''
Don Quixote'', that "time and straw make medlars ripe", referring to the bletting process.
Process

Chemically speaking, bletting brings about an increase in
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
s and a decrease in the
acid
An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. Hydron, hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis ...
s and
tannins that make the unripe fruit astringent.
Ripe medlars, for example, are taken from the tree, placed somewhere cool, and allowed to further ripen for several weeks. In ''Trees and Shrubs'', horticulturist
F. A. Bush wrote about medlars that "if the fruit is wanted it should be left on the tree until late October and stored until it appears in the first stages of decay; then it is ready for eating. More often the fruit is used for making jelly." Ideally, the fruit should be harvested from the tree immediately following a hard frost, which starts the bletting process by breaking down
cell walls and speeding softening.
Once the process is complete, the medlar flesh will have broken down enough that it can be spooned out of the skin. The taste of the sticky, mushy substance has been compared to sweet dates and dry applesauce, with a hint of cinnamon. In ''Notes on a Cellar-Book'', the great English
oenophile George Saintsbury called bletted medlars the "ideal fruit to accompany wine."
[Saintsbury, George (1920). '' Notes on a Cellar-Book''. University of California Press. ASIN: B07H1HLQH8.]
See also
*
* , whose ''tamr'' (ripe, sun-dried) stage is similar to bletting
*
*
*
*
References
{{Measure for Measure
Fruit
Horticulture
Food science
Plant physiology