Pears

Gramps favorite fruit is a pear. I learned a bit about pears this week:

Pears are one of the few fruits that are actually much better when picked before they are ripe. Mature pears that are picked while still green ripen slowly—starches convert to sugars and the texture turns from dry and gritty to juicy and smooth. If you need pears for a specific occasion, it’s best to plan ahead several days.

Buy firm pears at the store and place them in a paper bag. Putting a banana or an apple in the bag will speed up the process.

Pears ripen from the inside out, so as soon as the stem end has a slight give to it when pressed, the fruit is ripe.

Refrigerate ripe pears to slow further ripening; they will stay good for 2 or 3 days.

Interesting tidbit: Pears are less allergenic than many other fruits—so pear juice is sometimes used as the first juice introduced to infants.

Fruit Names

Granny Smith apples were first grown in Australia by Maria Ann (Granny) Smith of New South Wales.

Bartlett pears are named for Enoch Bartlett, a Roxbury, Massachusetts farmer.

Greengage plums got their name from Sir William Gage, an English botanist.

Macintosh apples came to us from a Scottish immigrant who discovered them growing wild on his newly settled Canadian farm.