Apples and Pears

Sand Pears

I’m not sure why I buy apples by the bag because I always end up with 2 or 3 that lay around in the fridge for a month or two ending up wrinkly. Once I wrote about making an apple cake from some not so good looking ones that turned out pretty delicious. Yesterday with 2 old apples I mused about what to do with them, throw out or cook. I ended up peeling and dicing and cooking as though for apple pie filling and they turned out fine. Tasty on crackers.

This reminded me of something else I used to cook…sand pears. Personally, I haven’t known but one person who could eat a sand pear raw and of course that was a native Floridian. They are so hard they could pull out your teeth if you’re not careful. Beavers would probably love them. The only time I’ve seen them for sale was at a house near Fairbanks off Waldo Road. Jim and I were looking for muscadines, and the grape grower had a couple of pear trees in his back yard. He happily sold us some.

But back to when I was cooking them. When I worked as a bookkeeper, my boss had several sand pear trees in his yard and he would bring me large paper bags of them as they fell to the ground. That was the only way to know they were ripe. He gave me his pear cooking recipe which was very simple. Peel, cut off thin slices, put in a microwaveable casserole, add a little water and cinnamon, and cook for however long it takes for them to soften. The time would vary from 12 minutes to 20 minutes and I think you could cook them forever and they would continue to remain crispy, with a somewhat sandy texture. You could add sugar and a little butter if you wanted to or Stevia or another sweetener after they had cooled. They were delicious on crackers, even better than the best apple you’ve ever eaten. And in pies or cobblers, delicious!

I tried to find some this past August but had no luck. Supermarkets wouldn’t dare sell them because folks would bring them back complaining about how they broke their teeth. I thought farmers’ markets would be a good place to try, but no luck there either. And they are the ugliest pear you’ve ever laid eyes on, a speckled light greenish-yellow and brown with the appearance of mildew all over. They’re more apple-shaped than pear-shaped but definitely a pear stem. The skin is very tough and they are difficult to peel, but to me the results are well worth the effort. I’ve never been strong enough to cut one in half.

I did some research and found that the proper name is Kieffer pear, a cross between a Japanese pear and a common pear. The first ones, my research said, were grown on the grounds of Andrew Jackson’s home near Nashville. I think ours have mutated a little because the pictures are not exactly the same as our Florida sand pear.

Sadly, my former boss’s land was sold and the pear trees were knocked down. His trees bloomed with tiny white flowers, and I have seen many similar trees blooming along roads in early spring. I wonder if they are sand pears? It would be nice to cook some again.

A Bad Apple

About once a month I buy a bag of apples. I don’t pay much attention to what kind they are because I tend to jump around depending on price. I’m always amazed at how many new varieties of apples appear in the store. There are actually over 2500 of them, I looked it up. I don’t think I’ve ever bought Honeycrisps or Cameos. Honeycrisps should be graham crackers and Cameos, well, they’re the things you pin on your blouse. Anyway, the first one I ate out of the last bag I bought had absolutely no taste at all so there they sat in my fridge day after day. I expect an apple to be a sweet, slightly tart and crunchy fruit. I finally got tired of looking at them, especially since the skin on a couple were puckering letting me know they were drying out. I wondered what I could do besides eat them raw. I'm one of those people who hates to throw away food, and I’m not a lover of sweets so pie was out of the question.

I went to Google for an easy recipe for an apple bread and found this one:

Apple Loaf

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup apple, peeled cored and shredded (I grated it)

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease one 9 X 5 loaf pan. Mix together, flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and nuts. In a large bowl, beat margarine, sugar, and 1 egg until smooth. Beat in 2^nd egg and stir in vanilla. Stir in shredded apples. Pour flour mixture into batter, stir just until moistened. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes, then remove from pan. Place on a rack to cool.

I didn't have any nuts of any kind but it turned out great without them. The only problem was I had 6 apples and the bread recipe only needed 2 to make a cup so I grated the rest, added sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla and cooked them in my microwave for 6 minutes. They were delicious on top of a slice of the apple loaf. It was a hearty meal warmed in the mornings for breakfast with my first cup of coffee for the day, and it was even good for dessert with a dollop of whipped cream. I ended up freezing half of the loaf and when a slice was warmed up in the microwave, it tasted as fresh as just-baked.

So the moral to this story is that a bad apple may turn out not to be bad at all. It depends on what you do with it, and I think that could apply to the fruit or the person.