I recently bought some quinces in our local farmshop as part of my new policy of investing heavily in right-wing fruit, vegetables and legumes. This undertaking, born of principle, has meant a surfeit of cauliflower in our diet, the brassica having been identified by the Democratic party congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a signifier of white colonialism.
That the quince is decidedly right of centre is surely beyond dispute. It was first grown in England by Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, a man who would have made short work of Nicola Sturgeon. In the 5th century BC the fruit cropped up in Aristophanes’s play The Acharnians, when the farmer Dicaeopolis remarks to a teenage sex-worker: ‘Oh! my gods! what bosoms! Hard as a quince! Come, my treasures, give me voluptuous kisses!’ Aristophanes was clearly not a signatory to the #MeToo movement. A couple of centuries later, Callimachus tells us how Acontius uses a quince to pull some chick in the garden of Aphrodite, thus establishing the quince as the go-to symbol for elderly men pursuing underaged women. I don’t know if Jimmy Savile ever mentioned quinces.
The fruit resembles a degenerate pear — a pear which has made bad choices in its life. Downy and squat. The tree from which it emerges is a delight, especially in early May when fecund with pink blossom, which is the time that famous perfume begins to emanate. A rich, cloying, decadent aroma reminiscent of Paco Rabanne’s 1 Million deodorant, which my wife has banned me from using because she considers the scent ‘effeminate’. That perfume stays with you — in the fruit bowl, when you are peeling it and, most of all, while it is being cooked.
Like all good food, and especially right-wing food, the quince requires work, time and an appetite for deferred gratification.
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