Ingredient: Pears
Category: Fruit
Season: September to late October
A pear is a pomaceous fruit produced by a tree of genus Pyrus.
The English word pear is probably from Common West Germanic *pera, probably a loanword of Vulgar Latin pira, the plural of pirum, which is itself of unknown origin.
Three species account for the vast majority of edible fruit production, the European Pear (Pyrus communis) cultivated mainly in Europe and North America, the Chinese white pear, bai li (Pyrus ×bretschneideri), and the Nashi Pear (Pyrus pyrifolia) (also known as Asian Pear or Apple Pear), both grown mainly in eastern Asia.
There are thousands of cultivars of these three species.
A species grown in western China, (Pyrus sinkiangensis), and (Pyrus pashia), grown in southern China and south Asia, are also produced to a lesser degree.
Pears are consumed fresh, canned, as juice, and dried.
The juice can also be used in jellies and jams, usually in combination with other fruits or berries.
Fermented pear juice is called perry.
Pears will ripen faster if placed next to bananas in a fruit bowl. They stay fresh for longer if kept in a fridge.
Pears are the least allergenic of all fruits. Along with lamb and soya formula, pears form part of the strictest exclusion diet for allergy sufferers.
Pear wood is one of the preferred materials in the manufacture of high-quality woodwind instruments and furniture.
It is also used for woodcarving, and as firewood to produce aromatic smoke for smoking meat or tobacco.
Summer and autumn pears should be gathered before they are fully ripe, while they are still green, but snap off when lifted.
If left to ripen and turn yellow on the tree, the sugars will turn to starch crystals and the pear will have gritty texture inside.
The 'Jargonelle' should be allowed to remain on the tree and be pulled daily as wanted, the fruit from standard trees thus succeeding the produce of the wall trees.
In the case of the 'Passe Crassane', long the favoured winter pear in France, the crop should be gathered at three different times, the first a fortnight or more before it is ripe, the second a week or ten days after that, and the third when fully ripe.
The first gathering will come into eating latest, and thus the season of the fruit may be considerably prolonged. It is evident that the same method may be followed with other sorts which continue only a short time in a mature state.
France is the home of the best pear variety, the Comice, also named Doyenne du Comice, and it does seem that those with the fullest figures and most gloriously juicy, melting interiors come from either France or Italy.
British growers produce good crops of the slimmer Conference pear and – recently – of a hybrid called Concord, which is part Comice and part Conference.
Pears don't travel particularly well and are not the subject of a huge international trade, so here is one fruit that has stayed nicely seasonal. Yellow Williams pears are the first of the year in late August.
Pears are picked when they are hard so they don't bruise, then stored.
They ripen,when returned to room temperature |