Chaenomeles
Chaenomeles on an Edo period scroll by KANŌ Sigekata (1657-1699)
On winter walks, there are a few plants that I always find grabbing my attention and one of the best of these is Chaenomeles. It’s small, pear blossom flowers sing out at you from stark, bare branches at a time of year when everything else is a bit dour. Chaenomeles spend the rest of the year looking utterly unremarkable if not downright twiggy and unpromising, and anyone passing them in June might wonder what on earth people thought was so “superb” about them when Chaenomeles x superba was named. But the winter and early spring is their time to shine and they take full advantage of it.
This is, of course, exactly what they are trying to do. With very little else in bloom, winter-flowering shrubs have their moment in the limelight, but with limited pollinators braving the chilly weather, they have to make the most of their opportunity. Appearing when there are few, if any, leaves to contend with, the flowers seem particularly luxuriant against their bleak, bare stems, and look like they belong in an Edo period Japanese print, or on Chinese lacquer work. In fact, they are depicted on both, and our common name for these plants as “Japonicas” is a reference to their oriental origins. Chaenomeles x superba is a hybrid cross between C. japonica from Japan and C. speciosa from China and both cultures celebrated its blossom.
Chinese lacquer work screen depicting birds on a Chaenomeles bush
All of them will happily grow into a big tangled shrub if left to their own devices: impressive whilst in flower but rather forbidding the rest of the year. Training them against a wall or railings seems to do more justice to their delicate exoticism, displaying their flowers for appreciation and, more importantly, their fruit for easy picking.
I remember encountering Chaenomeles on walks as a child, and back then it was their fruit which would catch my eye more than their flowers. Weird and knobbly yellow pomes, somewhere between a large crab apple and a miniature pear, their fruit are arguably the most ‘superb’ thing of all. The genus is named from the Greek chaeno “to split” and melon “apple” based on a description by botanist Thunberg of the fruit splitting. Since then, this has been criticised as something that rarely, if ever happens, so I have decided instead that the name must have been meant as a rapturous instruction: ‘just split the fruit open’!
The moment you do their fragrance is incredible: lemony and sweet with a hint of pineapple. They smell so intoxicating you’d almost think it was a good idea to take a nibble, but raw the fruit are bitter and pithy. Luckily adding a tonne of sugar mitigates their bitterness, and their pithiness makes them a brilliant source of pectin – they’re perfect for making jelly. Since the fruit are small, you end up needing quite a few to make a good, useful quantity, and I’ve always kept a sort of urban foragers map of the Japonica hedges of our Brixton neighbourhood. Most people don’t have a first clue what to do with them and are happy enough to part with the fruit, especially if you leave a little jar of jelly on their doorstep a few weeks later.
Arty and I rescuing Japonicas off the ground in the park
Last weekend we went to a London park (which I will keep top secret) for a run-around and after we stopped for an outdoor coffee I suddenly noticed a Japonica covered in bright red blossom and last season’s fruit. Urban foraging is a noble art, and I would never pick the lumpy fruit off the branches in a public park in case some little child should wander past, see them at eye level (adults never look down and rarely look closely) and fall in love as I did. But fruit hidden on the ground I consider fair game. Twenty minutes later we were driving home with a bag of muddy fruit in the boot and the car smelling like a sweet shop.
Credit to Toby for the unsolicited photoshoppery
We chopped them up, covered them with water and stewed them until they were soft and pulpy. The whole mix was then suspended in a cheesecloth (or baby muslin) over a large mixing bowl overnight. Drip by drip, the resulting liquid was a rich and brilliant yellow. We measured it out into a heavy bottomed pan, adding one pound of sugar for every pint of liquid and then boiled its socks off for about 15 minutes, regularly dripping small quantities onto refrigerated plates and ho-humming about its consistency (when it starts to form a skin and hold together on the plate it’s ready).
The resulting amber jelly has a lovely lemony taste. So often food writers describe jam-making as capturing the very essence of summer; we have captured the subtle and exotic flavour of Japonicas in winter.
