After another year of reflection, yes quince is worth it. Nothing really tastes like it and these weird trials make us better. there’s an old saying about it that slips my mind at the moment. Anyway, when you’re forced to take your time with an ingredient, you respect it more for some reason. Quince and any fermentation project will tell you this. Labor of love…That’s the saying. At any rate, I cooked some quince in some of the kitchen’s leftover whey. Equal parts sugar to whey, a couple splashes of lemon juice and the peels, cores, and meaty parts. This was simmered for about six hours total. Yeah, you heard that right.

The result was spectacular. Ruby red gems of unimaginable flavor. there was nothing I could do to resist, I had to eat several of them, and when I did I felt the full power of the quince’s charms. Not only beautiful and lovely, but high maintenance and laborious to boot. For whatever reason, these slower foods give more back even if you sit down and had nothing to do with them. It’s easy to tell by the depth of flavor. Many examples of this exist: any braised or long smoked meat, fermentations both salt and koji styles as well as the weird ones like tepache but good wine is also in this list which can go on if prompted…Uh salt cures, salamis and such…

So the question now is what to do with this? No idea. I’ve had one hell of a day already. I’ve got an inkling for a punch and if it doesn’t work out great I’ll use it in a cocktail instead…Maybe even both…I’ve got a lot of quince all of a sudden. Just ten pounds goes a hell of a long way. Manchego…Paging manchego? Could manchego find an entry here somehow? That would be cool as shit.