Ah, the perfect juicy pear. The golden juice immediately runs down your arm to drip off your elbow with your first bite. The sweetness explodes in your mouth. It’s the ultimate taste of fall.
You know you can buy these perfect pears from that certain online store known for its gold-wrapped pears, but it’s going to cost you a mint (or you might need to sweet-talk your Aunt Myra to gifting it to you instead of the fruitcake.)
What if I told you the trick of how to select the perfect explosively juicy pear from your own grocery store, EVERY SINGLE TIME? Yes, your local grocery store can provide pears as good (or better) as those H&D* gold-wrapped ones!
So to start, it’s important to know that the title, ‘How to select the juiciest pears’, is a bit misleading. For fruit that ripens once it’s off the tree, like stone fruits for instance, you’ve been told since forever to pick the ones that are nice and ripe. And ‘tree-ripened’ is generally touted as a sign of quality.
But when it comes to pears, that advice is wrong. If you pick the tree-ripened one, you will be sorely disappointed. Every. Single. Time.
A tree-ripened pear is mealy and gross. You know, the kind you take a bite, spit out, throw away, then declare loudly how you will never buy a pear again because they are always AWFUL.
I don’t know why this is, but I know it is true. I promise (and you can look it up in my favorite old standby, the Joy of Cooking cookbook): Tree-ripened pears are disgusting.
BUT, what’s the secret to picking the perfect juicy pear?
While pears that ripen ON the tree are mealy and worthy of the garbage bin, pears that ripen OFF the tree are pure magic. Juicy, drips down your chin, slurp-the-juice-off awesomeness.
When pears ripen OFF the tree, they are glorious.
So how do you know how to pick the perfect “off-tree ripened” pear?
Well, let’s review the facts that we know:
1) pears continue ripening once picked. They soften up progressively, even those special gold-wrapped ones your aunt sends you in the mail for Christmas each year.
2) pears that ripen OFF the tree are pure magic.
3) pears that ripen ON the tree are gross.
4) because pears continue to ripen once picked, the pears in the grocery store MAY or MAY NOT have reached their soft, yields-to-slight-pressure ripeness ON or OFF the tree – you don’t know their past history, what they’ve been through, who their momma is, you just know that they are ripe NOW.
5) thus, that soft pear in the grocery bin MAY or MAY NOT be wonderful. It may be perfect, sure. But it also may be mealy and a waste of money.
THUS, the sure-fire way to always know that you are eating an off-tree ripened pear is to pick the hardest ones in the bin. If YOU know it’s not ripe now, it means it was not ripe when it was picked. As it ripens (yes, this means it ripens OFF-TREE! because you planned it that way!), it will transform to the juiciest pear you’ve ever had.
Woohoo! Juicy pears for the win!
Some tips:
- pears take about 4-5 days to ripen on the counter. So plan your indulgence ahead of time (sorry, it’s the price of greatness)
- place your rock hard pears in a paper bag to help trap the ripening gasses they let off. This can speed up the ripening by maybe a day.
- sometimes the skin is tough. I haven’t found the secret to avoiding that occasional state. I just peel them.
- oh no! going out of town for a last minute weekend trip and your pears are going to rocket past their peak during that timeframe? Put them in the refrigerator. It slows the ripening down and you can take them out once you get back home, to keep ’em ripening
- pears on super sale and you stocked up? rather than suddenly having to dine on nothing but pears for three meals a day when they all hit the ripening point AT THE SAME TIME, guess what? you can refrigerate them for up to a couple months (!), and take one out at a time to ripen. Suddenly you have a pear ripening production line!
- I write ‘or better’ way up above. I promise, I did write that. What’s better than a perfectly juicy pear? One that is local. Organic. A unique variety. Purchased from a local grocer you want to support. Yes, you can shop for your indulgences mindfully! That’s better!
>> * H&D = Harry and David. Known for pricy pears that I am delighted to eat if anyone wants to mail ’em to me. They usually arrive ripe, but since they obviously use the technique I describe above, they’re juicy and ready to eat upon arrival. I just won’t buy them myself because I know how to get this quality from my local store for a fraction of the price and a few days of waiting.