Doyenné du Comice

Queen of Pears

I have probably waxed lyrical on Blip about the Comice Pear before, but I am doing it again. I love Comice Pears and no other pear will do as far as I am concerned. No other pear has the very fine, real pear taste and silky, juicy texture of a Comice. 

The problem is . . . getting hold of them. Only rarely do they appear in shops, although I look for them all the time. They are grown in the UK, but they don’t seem to get to us. I think I know why - they probably don’t travel well. The skin bruises easily, although this does not affect the eating quality, but people like perfection. The other problem is that once they reach ripeness, they don’t last long before they go soft. It is said that there is a five minute interval of ripeness - before they are too hard and after they are too soft. This is a slight exaggeration, but I can see that shops might be reluctant to stock them because of this. 

At the weekend I found both Booths and Sainsbury’s (all UK grown) had some and I am still eating them . . . delicious!!