Until I had a loquat tree in my backyard, loquats is something that I'd be more likely to throw down in a game of Scrabble than eat. Bingo with a Q. Eating them seemed to have fallen out of fashion at some point in the 1950s, just like sock hops or colonialism.

The fruit is a distant relative of the apple but when ripe, taste a little like a tart and less-flavoursome apricot, a sort of generic and underwhelming fruitiness. It originated in Southeastern China where it has been cultivated for thousands of years and has spread throughout almost all of Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Almost everywhere with a Mediterranean-like climate has grown it for millennia. In Australia, it is for the most part, ornamental. The thick dark green foliage provides shade aplenty.

The loquats global reach is a result of the timing of when it comes into fruit. It fruits early. The fruit ripens well before summer and if you needed to rely on a supply of fruit throughout the year, loquat cultivars fill the gap after apples and before stone fruit ripen, which is reason enough to grow one at home. The more fruit and vegetables that you grow at home, the more that you realize that the time of the year that plants ripen is more important than crop yield (at least if you're not planning on a commercial orchard). When plants ripen in a single hit, you've got a few scant weeks of eating it fresh. Any means to stretch out the peak ripeness is appreciated, or else end up with a freezer full of fruit and a cupboard filled with pickles. It is the good life for chutney aficionados, less so for others.

As for what to do with loquats: anything for which you could use an apricot or plum, use a loquat. You can eat them raw. Their tartness works well in chutney and a fine jelly can be made cooking them with sugar, lemon juice and water. My loquats are on the tarter end of the spectrum, so I made barbecue sauce.

Hot Loquat and Cumin Barbecue Sauce

2kg loquats
1 cup (250ml) of malt vinegar
2 cups (500ml) of water
250gms of brown sugar
1 onion, diced
1 tablespoon of chili flakes (adjust to taste)
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

Cut off the end of the loquats and squeeze out the seeds. Mix the loquats together with all the ingredients and boil for an hour, until the loquats soften and fall apart. Blend with a stick blender/immersion blender/actual blender. If you prefer a chunky sauce, cool and eat with fatty barbecued meats.

Otherwise, push the sauce through a sieve with a spatula to remove the chunks, then cool and eat.