CHRIS RUNDLE

THE MODEST PEAR GETS A CHANCE TO SHINE IN THESE RECIPES, SAYS CHRIS

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Conference pears are Chris's variety of choice

(Pics: Getty Images)

NEVER gets much of a press, the pear. Not like the apple. The apple is always hailed as one of the shining stars of the kitchen, the go-to ingredient, the fruit that comes in so many varieties that it has become a byword for versatility.

But pears just aren't in the same league. They don’t deliver the same gustatory fireworks. They're all right in their way. But their way is a terribly modest, unassuming one.

Catch a pear in its prime and its higher water content certainly sets its eating quality somewhere above an apple's. But the thing pears are best known for is surreptitiously reaching the end of their shelf life without displaying any sign of doing so. Not for nothing has the phrase “rotten as a pear” slipped into everyday usage because nothing goes rotten quite like a pear.

And it does it from the inside out. Which is why on so many occasions I have reached for a pear that’s been sitting in the fruit bowl for a few days and which I intend to chop up for lunch only to find my fingers sinking into squishy flesh which, a few milli-metres under the still-pristine skin has already gone brown and is starting to decompose.

Pear trees are remarkably long-lived: many will stand for a century, or even two. But it doesn’t mean they go on fruiting prolifically. We have one in the front garden. Its shape suggests it was once espaliered against a wall: one that no longer exists, so it was probably planted some years before the house was built.