I had a pear today at work.
Every Monday, a fruit basket arrives on our floor. The bananas always go first, followed by the grapes, apples and mandarins. By Thursday, only the pears and oranges are left. I can understand why oranges remain — their strength lies in their pressing — but pears?
Is it the complexion of their skin — always a bit mottled? Or is it their colors, an autumnal range, reminiscent of decay? Is it the shape, not round or pert but, well, pear-shaped — an adjective most often modified with “horribly” by the British? Apples look less like human anatomies past their sell-by date. Are pears apple’s ugly friend?
Apples often do boast bright young colors and taut puncture-me skin, but how much of this glamor comes through articifial enhancement? Pears, on the other hand, seem never to have benefited from science’s tonics. They have to rely on more subtle inducements.
When is the last time you bought pears at the supermarket? I have certainly gone a year or more without tasting one. But this morning, on an empty stomach, I trawled the bottom of that basket and bit into my first pear in a while.
Inside, the texture looks glassy, but the flesh is smooth and giving, pliant even, as if flattered by the unaccustomed attention. Pears are easy on the taste buds too, not as tart as apples, and wetter, though the juice is silky like soft water, and prone to run down the chin.
Does this make them harder to eat in polite company? Is this why they are shunned by the corporate snacking community? Do get reacquainted with a pear one of these days — they’re the mature fruit.
My wife loves pears. But only the hard ones.
Me I love jucy ones that have attained the state of perfection just before they topple inte rottenness.
We also get a fruitbasket at work every Monday morning. I agree about the bananas, but here pears get eaten quite soon. Of course, notions of polite behavior in snacking communities might vary across the organizational spectrum – I work at university.
Also, another observation: one develops a certain amount of feeling connected with the fruitbasket. Last week, a colleague organized a meeting with a dozen of out-of-institute people. Afterwards, the basket was empty. (And this was a Tuesday, so we talk about a lot of fruit eaten by this gang of extramural scavengers that showed up and then left.)
Gustav, you have no idea how envious I am of you. At my university the thought of a weekly fruit basket is about as foregn as a dildo-free trade union weekend *S*
That’s an interesting observation Stefan. I think pears have less mass appeal -mainly because they bruise so easily and then are rendered fairly tasteless. The delights of eating an unblemished and perfectly ripened(but not too ripe) pear are unfortunately countered by the ease with which they bruise. But for those willing to take the risk, as you did, the rewards are great.
The other fruit are more popular without a doubt- bananas for the ease with which they are eaten(no messy juice) and apples and oranges are fairly strongly embedded in our consciousness through nursery rhymes, colloquial English expressions “that’s like comparing apples and oranges” and of course the Bible- where the apple had a starring role in the original sin fiasco.
On the other hand, I cannot think of a well known colloquial expression involving a pear except to say that something has gone “pear shaped”….
I mean “Horribly pear shaped” ;/