Preserving Pear Perfection

I read a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that said, “There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.”

This is pretty much the truth. I love pears so much, but they are not nearly so sturdy as the apple. Still, there is something so beautiful about them to me. When we first planted fruit trees on our property, I have no idea why we chose pear trees over apple trees, but I am glad we chose pears. Even though I love apples more, apples are readily available from small farms in our area. I don’t know anyone else who has pears.

We have just two trees, but our asian pear tree generally does well and just went above and beyond this year with all of the rain. With Emerson’s quote in mind, I set out this year to can and freeze our pears to make sure we could enjoy them for longer than ten minutes.

This year, thanks to a very generous tree, I was able to freeze three gallons of pears and can 15 jars. That’s amazing for just two trees. If you are in Maine and want to preserve some pears before the season is over, this is the recipe I used for canning asian pears. It works very well. Our whole family approved of the light syrup recipe, though Ron thought even the light syrup was a little too heavy. Because asian pears are crunchier than other pears, if you are not working with asian pears, you might want to consider this recipe.

And if you are in Maine reading this and know of a farm that sells pears in the fall, please leave a comment. I don’t know if we will be so lucky with an abundance of pears next year, but I can never again be without pears in the fall. I am now officially spoiled by plentiful pears.