The Queen of the Quince

Every Pesach my mother lives on in one particular food: the dessert of stewed quinces, deep ruby in colour, tart and well sweetened with sugar. Because without the sugar it would be inedible.
The quince is a pome fruit, related to the apple and pear, yellow skinned and white fleshed. Whoever first picked one off the tree and bit into it would have really been disappointed. Quinces are wonderfully fragrant but cannot be eaten raw: it's like trying to eat a gritty, astringent potato. So whoever thought that it could be rendered edible at all was a visionary; or desperately hungry. (Like the olive; have you ever picked an olive and popped it in your mouth? It is without a doubt the worst thing you could eat. It is unbelievably bitter. Anyone who bit into it would spit it out and declare it to be poisonous. So who first had the idea of crushing them for the oil in the flesh and the stone? Had to be a message direct from G-d.)
Quinces originally come from Persia and surrounding areas. I can only assume that my mother's grandmother who came from Bessarabia, brought the tradition of cooking quinces for Pesach with her and passed it down.
You peel it and quarter it and core it and cut each quarter into 2 or 3 wedges. You put them in a pot, cover with water, add a heap of sugar and cook them for about 3 hours. The longer they cook, the redder they get. (Apples will also go pink if you cook them long enough. I don't know why.)
Now, I've made it sound easy, haven't I? But it's actually hard work, because the quince is a bastard of a fruit. It is hard and gritty, often infested with bug holes that you have to cut around, uneven in shape, therefore hard to peel, and if they are a bit unripe, as they were this year (but not infested, praise The Lord), I swear it's like peeling and cutting a stone. And you have to wear gloves because they are so astringent and acidic they will leave your hands a mess.
Every year I say I won't do quinces again, and every year I do them again.
I mean, they taste amazing, there is a definite reward there, but crikey, it's hard-earned. They freeze well, they keep well in the fridge, and I just ate the last bit of Pesach quinces for dessert tonight. They were delicious. And with every bite I thought of my mother, peeling and cutting and cursing the damn things, as I do every year. Tradition!
Thanks, Mum. I think.