A pear for all seasons and courses of the menu

I’m partial to pears. This fruit has sweet, juicy, almost silky flesh, making it great to eat out of hand. In recipes, pears are most accommodating, working in dishes both savoury and sweet.

Pears are also an attractive-looking fruit and that’s a good thing because they may be sitting in your fruit bowl a few days. According to the New Food Lover’s Companion, Mother Nature protected the easily bruised pear by making it better when picked and mature, but still hard and not ripe. Unlike most fruit, that book says pears are best ripened off the tree, where they improve in both texture and flavour.

Pears picked when not ripe also eases transportation. That explains why the pears you see in stores and farm markets are often in wonderful-looking condition, but still feel firm, ready for you take them home and ripen them there.

To do that you must leave the pears out at room temperature. To speed up the process, you could place the pears in a paper bag, which will concentrate the ethylene the fruit naturally gives off that helps ripen it. To speed up the process even more, place other ethylene emitting fruit in the bag, such as apples or bananas.

When ripe, some varieties, such as Bartlett pears, change from green to yellow. However non-Bartletts, such as Anjou, Bosc, Seckel and others do not change much in colour as they ripen. Because of that you’ll have to feel the pear to gauge ripeness.

According to the USA Pears website, usapears.org, because pears ripen from the inside out, the best way to check for ripeness is to “check the neck.” To do this, gently press near the stem with your thumb. When it gives to gentle pressure it is ripe and ready to eat. That website says if you wait until the pear is soft around the middle, it will be overripe.

When pears are ripe, to prolong shelf life store them in the refrigerator and plan to eat or use them in a recipe within a few days.

Pears can be used in all sorts of sweet and savoury preparations. Today I showcase that in recipes for a fine autumn soup, brilliant chutney and a flaky free-form tart called a galette.