8/12/2019 Resilient Like a Medlar
1/4
Resilient like a medlar
Image from Wikimedia
Commons.http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medlar_pomes_and_leaves.jpg
By Francois Medion. This article was originally written for the
2014 spring issue of the Duluth Community Garden Program
newsletter.
I grew up a long way from northern Minnesota, in the southwest
of France on a dairy and
vineyard farm. Small farms were still the norm back then;
farming had not yet turned industrial,consolidating all the small
parcels into endless fields. The regional landscape was then
defined by what
is calledbocage,fields and meadows surrounded by shrubby edges
and rows of trees that we call
hedgerows here. These green natural fences were of course a
heaven for song birds, small critters such
as hedgehogs and snails which you very well know French people
love to turn into a delicacy. All this has
indeed vanished for the sake of productivity and profit. What is
lost is not just the wild life and beauty
but also a diversity of plants, shrubs and trees, some of which
like the animals have been almost
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medlar_pomes_and_leaves.jpghttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medlar_pomes_and_leaves.jpghttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medlar_pomes_and_leaves.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocagehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medlar_pomes_and_leaves.jpg
8/12/2019 Resilient Like a Medlar
2/4
eradicated from that region. These plants provided a whole slew
of priceless services besides beauty,
wildlife habitat and their use as natural fences. They created
micro climates by slowing down high
winds, gave shade, reduced evaporation and mitigated floods. For
the people they also provided fire
wood and coppice for basketry but my favorite thing was in the
spring to find among them field orchids,
daffodils, and primroses and in the fall the cornucopia of
berries, fruits and nuts from trees that had
either been planted or encouraged to proliferate. To my heart,
the most memorable among them were
the juicy blackberries with their thorny brambles, the even
thornier, if that can be, and super astringent
prunelles (Prunus spinosa)and the one that in my mind has gained
a mythic aura because of its near
total disappearance from the fields and from my life, the
medlarMespilus germanica.Back then, this
inconspicuous small tree and even more inconspicuous fruit hid
itself in many of these hedgerows and
we kept an eye on them waiting for thepomesto be ready for the
picking. As much as the medlar tree
and fruit are unassuming, its flowers have the delicacy of white
roses to which family they belong. The
fruit also knows how to keep its secrets, it has the outer color
and fuzziness of a kiwi and it will reveal its
inner ambrosia only if you are patient enough to wait for its
hard flesh tobletand transform from a hard
bitter astringent nugget into a creamy-caramely-apple butterthat
you can suck from the papery brown
skin for a surprisingly sweet treat. I always ate them as a
snack straight off the trees after a frost
transmuted them into delicacies. In areas and times were farms
were not as richly endowed with fruit
trees as ours, medlar fruits were truly loved, harvested still
hard and stored in the granaries for the few
weeks it took for them to blet. Then a few would be enjoyed as
such and the rest transformed into
jellies, made into tarts, and brewed into medlar wine.
Today my heart jumps in delight knowing that I will be
reconnecting with this old childhood
friend who is coming all the way to northern Minnesota via
theNorthwood Nurseryand the annual fruit
tree sale fundraiser for theDuluth Community Garden Program.And
I made sure that they will be a
feature of theDuluth Grill Parking Lot Orchardwhere their small
stature (6-8ft), zone 4 hardiness and
tolerance of strong winds will make them ideal candidates. The
medlars arent the only unusual fruittrees represented in this
yearsselection for the garden program spring sale. The selecting
committee
Marian Syrjamaki-Kuchta an expert gardener and the grandmother
of community gardening in Duluth,
(Josh Horky a botanist par excellence and expert in alpine and
bog flora and myself, the Duluth Grill
gardener) decided that time has come to broaden the scope of
whats offered in our Northland beyond
blueberries, plums, sour cherries, apples and pears. Our
selectionall hardy for zones 3 or 4will
include along with the classics, hardy kiwis, apricots, honey
berries, cornelian cherries, aronia, and
indeed the medlars
The rationale behind this decision goes beyond our love of the
exotic and being the ones to offer
a selection that no other garden center or nursery has.
First as you might already know the great majority of the fruits
and vegetables we consume,
well over 90% by some estimates, have traveled astronomical
distances before reaching our plate. As a
consequence, the freshness of vegetables or the ripeness of
fruits must be artificially propped. Of an
even greater importance is the fact that stores have only the
capacity to carry three days worth of
produce at any time. If this unsustainable pipeline of cheap,
unhealthy produce were to be severed, we
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanicahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanicahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanicahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blettinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blettinghttps://www.onegreenworld.com/https://www.onegreenworld.com/https://www.onegreenworld.com/http://www.duluthcommunitygarden.org/PDF/2014_fruit_tree_and_shrub_sale.pdfhttp://www.duluthcommunitygarden.org/PDF/2014_fruit_tree_and_shrub_sale.pdfhttp://www.duluthcommunitygarden.org/PDF/2014_fruit_tree_and_shrub_sale.pdfhttps://www.facebook.com/DuluthGrillParkingLotOrchard?ref=streamhttps://www.facebook.com/DuluthGrillParkingLotOrchard?ref=streamhttps://www.facebook.com/DuluthGrillParkingLotOrchard?ref=streamhttps://www.facebook.com/DuluthGrillParkingLotOrchard?ref=streamhttp://www.duluthcommunitygarden.org/PDF/2014_fruit_tree_and_shrub_sale.pdfhttps://www.onegreenworld.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blettinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanica
8/12/2019 Resilient Like a Medlar
3/4
certainly would find ourselves in a difficult situation and we
would be faced with the very limited
selection of what we usually grow in our latitudes.
Second, the ever shrinking diversity of our food choicesdespite
overflowing grocery shelves
is as dangerous to us as the mono-cropping of modern agriculture
for the epidemic spread of plant pests
and diseases and to the ruin of the environment. Recent research
shows that the average American diet,all included from processed
foods to herbal teas, to fresh fruits and vegetables, relies
exclusively on a
maximum of 30 plant species. When looking at the diet of
tribesmen from the Kalahari or Ecuadors
rainforest, their diet comprise 400 to 500 plant species and
this is without even mentioning the great
diversity of animal foods they also rely on. Even cultures that
we think of as exclusively fish and meat
eaters such as the Inuit were shown to consume up to 60
different species of plants. There is no doubt
in my mind that despite the over abundance on the grocery
shelves, the dearth of diversity of the plant
foods that we consume has dire consequences for our health and
the quality of our lives. The same
scientists that are studying the diet diversity of different
cultures are also comparing the diversity of our
gut microbiome and finding that the two correlates. They surmise
that there are links between the
health, or lack thereof, of our gut microbiota and the increase
in autoimmune diseases that we arewitnessing.
Time has come to ask for sovereignty over our food system;
reclaim the self sufficiency of our
grandparents, and build resiliency by embracing diversity in all
its forms.
Plant a medlar tree.
Francois Medion is an urban farmer, a forager and educator in
Duluth Minnesota.
References:
Mespilus germanica, medlar or common medlar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanica
Medlar. Plants for a FutureDatabase
http://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?LatinName=Mespilus+germanica
Some of My Best Friends Are Germs. Michael Pollan, May 15, 2013.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-
your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&
Defining the Agricultural Landscape of the Western Lake Superior
Region: Realities and potentials for a
healthy local food system for healthy people. Stacey Stark,
David Abazs and David Syring. June 30, 2010.
Final Report.
http://www.goodfoodnetwork.org/images/HFHL_FINALREPORT.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanicahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanicahttp://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?LatinName=Mespilus+germanicahttp://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?LatinName=Mespilus+germanicahttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&http://www.goodfoodnetwork.org/images/HFHL_FINALREPORT.pdfhttp://www.goodfoodnetwork.org/images/HFHL_FINALREPORT.pdfhttp://www.goodfoodnetwork.org/images/HFHL_FINALREPORT.pdfhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&http://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?LatinName=Mespilus+germanicahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mespilus_germanica
