Medlars (wasRe: SC - Poisonous Tomatoes?)

[david friedman]

At 7:06 PM -0600 11/27/00, Michael Newton wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "david friedman" <ddfr at best.com>
>To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>Sent: Monday, November 27, 2000 6:13 PM
>Subject: Re: SC - Poisonous Tomatoes?
>
>
>  Medlars are not normally seen in U.S.
>>  grocery stores.
>>
>I thought that the reasons Medlars are too hard to ship to market seeing as
>they have to be bletted - which means when they would hit the market when
>they're underripe (so are tomatoes, I know) or ripe, when they are,IIRC,
>extremely soft.

My point was that there are lots of reasons why a paticular food 
isn't used in a particular culture other than the belief that it is 
poisonous.

So far as medlars are concerned, they are available in markets in 
Europe. And they could be sold here before they were bletted and kept 
by the buyer until they were bletted--or transported before, held by 
the store, and sold after. Persimmons are probably a closer 
equivalent than tomatoes--and are commonly sold, at least around 
here. As you probably know, they are very fragile when ripe and very 
astringent when unripe.
- -- 
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/