Crabapple Tree and Crabapple (Malus)

I was doing a flower photo series this year in April when all the fruit trees are blossoming. It's the best period of the year if you want to photograph these wonderful flower blossoms. I do that every year and can't wait to see them blooming to do my photo shoot.

While creating my post with these fruit blossoms I had to realize I have no idea what kind of trees those were. I thought one was apple and turned out to be something else. That is what happened with this beauty too. I thought it was cherry and turned out it's crabapple or Malus.

I keep seeing these trees along the roads growing wild but have never bothered to learn more about them. Till now. Now it's time.

Crabapple fruit is not an important crop in most areas, being extremely sour due to malic acid (which like the genus derives from the Latin name mālum), and in some species woody, and for this reason is rarely eaten raw. In some southeast Asian cultures they are valued as a sour condiment, sometimes eaten with salt and chili pepper, or shrimp paste. source

The tree is full of fruits this time of the year and although I know the fruits are very sour, I'd have loved to taste them but being along the road, are highly polluted. So I guess I'll skip the tasting till I can find a good one that seems to be clean, if there's one in the city.

So if the fruits can't be eaten, what good it serve, right? Well, there's one thing that caught my eyes.

Crabapples are an excellent source of pectin, and their juice can be made into a ruby-coloured preserve with a full, spicy flavour. A small percentage of crabapples in cider makes a more interesting flavour. As Old English Wergulu, the crab apple is one of the nine plants invoked in the pagan Anglo-Saxon Nine Herbs Charm, recorded in the 10th century. source

What I'd be interested in is the pectin. Pectin can be found in the primary cell walls of terrestrial plants. The scientist who first wrote about pectin was Henri Braconnot and this happened in 1825. Why is pectin important? Because it is used in food as a gelling agent, particularly in jams and jellies and I do a lot of jams each year. Now it's easier to buy the pectin powder because producing it at home would be difficult and the ripening time of the fruits don't really match. Some are ready for consumption at the beginning of summer, others are ripening during autumn and this makes it hard to use fresh crabapples.

A similar fruit containing a high quantity of pectin is quince. Lucky me, our neighbors have a bunch of quince and don't know what to do with them, so the great majority ends up in my kitchen. This year I'm planning to make some apple jam with quince and without any added sugar. I'll be back with updates once it happens.

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