Pears

Pears are the one fruit where the standard advice is genuinely counterintuitive: buy them firm and ripen them on the counter, then refrigerate.

Unripe pears keep for weeks refrigerated and ripen in 3–7 days at room temperature. Once ripe, they hold about 5 days in the fridge.

Check ripeness at the neck, not the belly. Press gently with your thumb near the stem — if it yields slightly, the pear is ready. The body of a pear stays firm even when the fruit is perfectly ripe, so squeezing the middle will always tell you it needs more time, and by the time the middle softens the inside has gone to mush.

To speed ripening, use a paper bag with a banana. Pears respond strongly to ethylene.

Pears freeze acceptably as slices in syrup for about a year.

Pears are unusual among fruit in that they ripen from the inside out, and the entire storage strategy follows from that.

Left to ripen on the tree, a pear develops grittiness and its core breaks down before the outside is ready. Commercially they are therefore picked mature but hard, and — for European varieties like Bartlett, Anjou, and Comice — usually given a period of cold before ripening, which is what triggers the process properly.

Because ripening runs outward from the core, a pear that feels soft in the middle of the body is already over-ripe internally, with a brown mushy core. This is why the neck test at the stem is the correct one: it is the last part to soften and therefore the honest indicator.

The gritty texture in some pears comes from stone cells — clusters of lignified cells that are a varietal characteristic, more prominent in some types and in over-mature fruit. It is not a spoilage sign.

Asian pears are different: they ripen on the tree, are eaten crisp, and keep for months refrigerated.

Discard pears with soft brown leaking areas, mold, or a fermented smell. Small brown skin speckles are usually cosmetic russeting.