Patience: Waiting for a ripe pear

This was not a great year for apples and peaches, at least in New England, where an early warm spell was followed by a cold snap that killed the nascent fruit. 

But apparently this is a particularly good year for pears, which bud later than apples. Anecdotally, my friends who have pear trees don’t seem to have any pears. But produce sections at local stores seem to have lots of especially nice ones this year.

The pears in the photo on this page are Bartletts from the Stemilt Rushing Rivers orchard in central Washington state, which is where the bulk of American pears are grown. The trade organization Pear Group Northwest said that the top crops are the green Anjou pears, which make up 50 percent of total pears grown in the Northwest. Bartletts make up 23 percent of the crop and Bosc pears are 17 percent.

For me, pears are like clementines, a fruit that represents the holiday season. Both have lots of vitamin C, which is nice during the cold and flu season if you believe that vitamin C helps build up your immune system.

Definitely pears and clementines have lots of fiber, too. 

And as the www.usapears.org website proudly proclaims, they are sodium free (and I guess gluten free too!). 

Pears require some patience. You can’t really pick one up at the store and take it home and eat it. Usually you have to let them ripen on your kitchen table for a few days, as they make their butterfly-like transformation from hard and crunchy to soft and buttery. 

Bartletts are the only pears that change color as they ripen, according to www.usapears.org. This is partly because pears ripen from the inside out, which is an odd and interesting fact and also the key to figuring out when they’re ripe. Don’t squeeze or press the body of the pear; use your thumb or a finger to apply gentle pressure up at the stem. If it “gives,” it’s ready to eat. You can prolong its life by about five days by putting your pear in the refrigerator. 

The pear website of course has lots of information on nutrition and a whole section devoted to getting children to eat fruit. There is also, I was surprised to discover, a whole section about what cheeses and wines pair well (sorry, pun) with which pears and for which courses (dessert, of course, but also appetizers). I actually really like to serve fruits and nuts at this time of year as hors d’ouevres; they’re colorful and pretty and unexpected and people seem to really like them. I’m not that much of a wine expert, but if you want guidance on that score, now you know where to find it.