If you quite fancy a dabble in alchemy, love potions, and alternative remedies then the humble quince might be your personal fruit mascot. Long used in home remedies for throat, lung and stomach ailments, in ancient Greece it was also regarded as the fruit of love, marriage and fertility and the gift of choice for newlyweds to nibble on during their honeymoon. A few quinces on the gift registry would seem a strange choice at first. Stashed in an ancient suitcase-with-wheels, surely they'd get that fluffy coating all over the clothes, and the entire romantic getaway could be spent stirring a pot of over-ripe quinces that might never set. But maybe old Aphrodite was onto something. Something deeper, something at the hard seedy core of it. Like a box of odd shaped and bitter fruit from the back corner of the orchard, so we too, with a little persistence, can be cooked up into something delicious to ladle onto breakfast.