Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica)

Dear Readers, the unadopted road around the corner from where I live in East Finchley is an endless source of ‘Wednesday Weeds’, but few are as spectacular as this one. This rather fine tropical shrub is a Loquat, a member of the endlessly generous rose family (Rosaceae). It comes originally from the hillier parts of China, but has been cultivated in Japan for more than a thousand years, largely for its orange fruit.

Loquat fruit (Photo By Aftabbanoori – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32257868)

The name ‘loquat’ originally referred to the black-green, unripe fruit of the closely-related kumquat, but a Chinese poet referred to this plant as loquat, and the name stuck. When the plant arrived in Louisiana in the southern US, however, it was called ‘misbeliefs’ (after the Creole word for the plant ‘mísplís’ – this in turn was what the medlar, to which the loquat was thought to be related, was called.  I shall probably be calling it ‘misbelief’ going forward.

The plant in East Finchley still has a few flowers, but apparently  when in full blossom the scent is very sweet and pleasant.

Although the loquat is clearly grown as an ornamental shrub, for most of history it’s been all about the fruit. Though, as with kumquats, I find myself largely unmoved – there are lots of seeds for the volume of fruit, if the flesh is not perfectly ripe it can be mouth-puckeringly sour. Furthermore, those pesky seeds contain cyanide, which is not a great thing to ingest in quantity. Still, I can see how loquat  might make a delicious jam, where a bit of acidity is not a bad thing. The fruit is also turned into wine, and the seeds into a liqueur that is apparently reminiscent of amaretto, called nespolino.

Nespolino from https://www.cucinafunzionale.it/liquore-nespolino-con-noccioli-di-nespole/

In China, these fruit are commonly known as ‘pipa’, because they share their shape with this traditional musical instrument.

Pipa (This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57858544)

And in China it is considered an auspicious fruit, its golden colour symbolising wealth and abundance. I can see why people thought that it was related to the medlar – the fruits have that squishy quality, which makes me think that they are probably only really sweet when they’re close to rotting. 

Photo by By Obaid Raza – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40000357

If anyone has eaten loquats, do let me know what you think! And in the meantime here’s a poem by Jewish poet Esther Ettinger. See what you think.

THEN I BROUGHT YOU by Esther Ettinger

Then I brought you a persimmon
and we ate it at the café near the sea.
It was probably autumn or the end of summer
because the sun sank early into the water
round as a fruit and just as beloved.

Oh, beautiful autumn, season of poets

And at the beginning of spring, don’t mention the loquat,
and at the end, the blackberry, fruit of lovemaking
staining your lips one and then another
and a hidden curtain descends on what remains
crimson from memory.

Oh, fruit of my life, I split open from one season to the next

When was it, which season
in the back of the bus, in the dark
we sat on something warm and steaming
and ate sweet dried figs
depleted like a bag of bones

Translation: 2012, Rona May-Ron

Loquats and Mountain Bird (By Lin Chun – Old: http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/painting/4courbf.htm, Fu Sinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, huihua bian 4: Liang Song huihua, xia (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), pl. 96, p. 131. Collection of the National Palace Museum, Beijing.New: Zhihu (archived direct link) (archived direct link (“r” version)), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3508092)