I like apples. Especially Honeycrisp. I eat one every day at lunch. Or at least I used to. Because lately I’ve been eating pears, as I find them so much tastier.
So why does my local Kroger have 20 bins of apples and only one or two bins of pears? Am I in a minority in liking pears more than apples? Also, I would think that anything that contains apples (apple pie, apple strudel, apple juice, etc.) could also be made with pears, yet those things seem to be rare or nonexistent when made with them.
My neighbors have a commercial apple orchard. They also have a few pear trees. They’ve told me that pears have a shorter season, do not store as well, bruise easily, and do not sell as well as apples.
Yes. Pears are sick, twisted mockeries of apples. Leathery hides, an uneasy combination of mushy and gritty flesh, a flavor that just screams, “NO!” Icky things, pears.
I’ve found the taste and texture of apples to be more consistent than pears, within a season and across seasons. There are more types with particular flavors to choose from. The long shelf life is a great help so you’ll end up with fewer bad ones. With most other fruit you take your chances on what you get.
I definitely like apples more than pears but don’t know if other people feel the same or if just the kind of reasons listed above make the difference in their popularity.
I am a huge pear fan (as are my family in that we consume 5 lbs of pairs per week per person when in season) and I buy tremendous numbers from my local farmer’s market (9 boxes at $45 between October and January this year), but I would never buy a pear [again] from the store. Pears don’t store well, they bruise too easily, and they have been selected for thicker skins due to protecting against 1 & 2.
I like apples about 50% as much, but I can get good fresh local apples from August to May so inevitably eat more of them (outside of pear season, of course).
Too messy and juicy, especially when they begin to get overripe. I have Anjous sliced sometimes for fancy tea with bleu cheese sandwiches or raisin-bread & walnut circles, but have to be careful about the particular pears I buy for the purpose.
In my mind, a pear has to be at near perfect ripeness to be truly delicious. Otherwise, it tastes like a raw potato. It’s been my experience that there is more leeway with apples. Sure, they rock when near perfect in ripeness, but they are still pretty good when not.
Pear trees also take a whole lot longer to mature and start bearing fruit. This tends to discourage commercial expansion. The old saying went “You plant apples for yourself and pears for your heirs.”
What I can’t figure out is why apparently* nobody but me makes pear pie.
Pears make very good pie. Make like apple pie, except add a little ginger.
(If the pears are mushy and/or gritty they’re not very good pears; though the mushy ones might have been and might just be overripe. Some people may be comparing poor quality pears to good quality apples.)
There are cons and pros as always. Personally I like taste of pears better, but, as said, they tend to be more messy to eat and can’t handle time/space continuum well. Dried one are delicious, alas hard to get. They make excellent juice, cider and schnapps, too. Had couple of trees around house when I was a wee bloke and used to climb them. My father used to experiment with “pear in a bottle” spirits at that time with mixed results.
