Autumn flavours

As the year begins to ebb, there is one last blaze of golden colour to look forward to. The quince trees have shed their leaves, but hanging from their bare branches are huge, golden fruit. When I was a child, we used to eat quinces raw. My grandmother grated the fruit and sprinkled it with sugar and cinnamon, a treat that was almost on a par with eating pastokythono, quince paste, which wandering traders would sell in the streets of Athens every autumn. Quinces have a wonderful fragrance and flavour, and are delicious baked with lamb or beef in exotic casseroles for special Sunday lunches, or transformed into sweet spoon preserves to lift the spirits during the winter months.