Medlars - Growing and Cooking (The English Kitchen, 30)

Jane Steward grows medlar trees, and makes medlar jelly each year. Her first medlar tree was a wedding present, and she planted it where there was once a fruit farm of 2,000 apple and pear trees. She has won awards for her medlar jelly which she sells under the Eastgate Larder name. Jane curates the UK's National Collection of medlar trees which she grows in Norfolk. Medlars orginally came from the Caucasus region, Turkey, Georgia and the Balkans. After the first world war, the popularity of medlar fruit waned, and it became almost forgotten. Jane Steward has been a huge force in the revival of this ancient fruit. Jane is the holder of the Plant Heritage National Collection of medlar trees since 2020. She owns Eastgate Larder, specialist maker of medlar preserves. Her vision and strategy is to revive awareness of the medlar in our gardens and kitchens. She cares for 115 trees in her medlar orchard at her Eastgate in Norfolk home, where she hand-makes preserves, and compounds Norfolk Medlar Gin Liqueur. Her early career was in the City, and she read German and French at university. In 2002 she trained as a leadership coach and ran her coaching company, Hayfield Group, until 2016. Read more