Its distinctively vanilla flavor makes it a favorite for roasting and grilling, but it's also great out of hand.įorelle: A pretty speckled pear that's popular in Europe, this small pear is best for snacking. They tend to be a nice size as well.Ĭomice: Brightly flavored with the quintessential pear taste, Comice pears are less grainy than many other varieties.Ĭoncorde: A favorite in Europe, the Concorde has a long neck that makes it immediately identifiable. They're easy to recognize because of their cinnamon-colored russeted skin. Choose red or green Bartletts when you want the fruit to cook into a sauce, as we do in the vanilla-cardamom pear butter recipe here.īosc: Crisp and mildly sweet, Boscs are the classic choice for poached pears. They're the outlier in the pear family, more apple than pear.īartlett: The juiciest of all the pears, a ripe Bartlett will leave your chin dripping when you eat it out of hand. Red and green Anjous have the same flavor.Īsian: As crisp as a ripe apple, Asian pears are very mild in flavor. These are the varieties you're likely to see this season, with a bit of information about them and their best uses.Īnjou: Firm and mild flavored, Anjous are good for cooking where you want the pear to pick up the flavors of its cooking companions. For salads and other raw uses where appearance is important, place the pears in water acidulated with lemon juice for a quick bath to prevent browning. Like apples, cut pears will brown when exposed to air. While the skin is full of nutrients, sometimes you just want that grittiness to go away. Most pears are harvested before they're fully ripe for this reason. As pears ripen on the tree, they develop stone cells, and most of these lie just under the skin. Some varieties are more grainy or gritty than others but peeling any pear will help reduce that graininess. I remember pear varieties that hold their shape - for poached pears, and for the pear tart we offer here - with a simple mnemonic of ABC: Anjou, Bosc and Comice. But in cooking, you may want the pear to retain its shape, or you may want it to melt into a concentrated sauce. You can eat any pear raw, from juicy Bartletts to crisp Asian pears. Understanding which pear varieties are best for which uses will help you choose wisely from the fruit you'll see at farmers markets, farm stands and grocery stores. Apples may get all of autumn's accolades, but it's time for pears to muscle in on the action.
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