SO WIDE is the range of fruit varieties – including exotic fruits – now readily available in our supermarkets and good fruit and vegetable retailers that it’s often difficult to make a quick choice. Of course, the most commonly selected are still usually apples and bananas, together with the all-year-round trio of raspberries, strawberries and blueberries. It seems that among this spoilt-for-choice cornucopia, the humble pear is often forgotten.
Pears are thought to have originated in present-day western China, in the foothills of the Tian Shan mountain range of Central Asia and have spread both north and south along these mountain chains, evolving over time into a diverse group of more than 20 widely recognised species. The enormous number of varieties of today’s
