Service Tree Fruit (Sorb Apple)

The sorb apple (Sorbus domestica), the fruit of the true service tree, is a small apple- or pear-shaped pome — an apple, pear and rowan relative in the rose family — that, like the medlar, is inedible straight from the tree: hard, sour and fiercely astringent with tannins at harvest, it must be bletted, left to soften and part-ferment for days or weeks until the flesh browns and collapses into a sweet, spiced, date-like pulp. Once a familiar country fruit across southern and central Europe, gathered from field and hedgerow and pressed into a cider-like drink, it is now a scarce heritage curiosity kept alive by orchardists and lovers of old fruit.