North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Rodney Eveland" <reveland@collinscom.net>]

While searching on pears I came across the following statements:

Pears are ready to harvest when they change from hard to firm
(firmness similar to a softball). Harvest maturity is usually
indicated by a slight change from green to yellow.

"The fragrant aroma, buttery texture, and succulent taste of a ripe
pear is an experience. Unfortunately, most people eat unripe pears as
the fruit is mostly picked unripe to prevent decay during
transportation and distribution to retailers. The texture of ripe
pears range from buttery to grainy, dry to succulent, and aromatically
from mild to assertive. Unripe pears ripen at room temperature after a
few days, but they lack the taste of a tree-ripened fruit. "

This ( http://www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/pears03.aspis )
a great site for statements like this: "People don't understand
pears," says Kevin Moffitt of the Pear Bureau Northwest in Milwaukie,
Ore. "They don't know how to select a pear that is ripe. If they
select an unripe pear, they don't know how to ripen it."

How could anyone not take the time to know and love the pear? Consider
the enticements of the most refined varieties: the Seckel's spicy
perfume, the Beurré Clairgeau's bright crimson cheek, and the White
Doyenné's mild, melting flesh. It's downright pomological eroticism.

Sure, the archrival apple flaunts its all-American appeal, but pears
have the shape: plump, curvaceous, and womanly. And the sweetness:
Pears contain more levulose-the most intense sugar-than any other
fruit."

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Here I am, 61 years old, and most of my life I missed out on this
great tastebud treat because all the pears I ate as a child were
either the canned grainy ones or the grainy "fresh" ones, so I avoided
pears for many years and now I find out I have missed a wonderful
treat.

Is there a place that describes the various pears in all of their
glory or folly if one were to eat a pear which is either not ripe or
tree ripened when it shouldn't have been. These now appear to be very
complex fruits with descriptions as flowery as any fine wine. Also
what is this levulose? Is it more complex than sucrose? I want to
avoid the grainy, dry, mildly aromatic ones and move closer to the
succulent, buttery, assertive ones. Which varieties are which? I
understand that there may be people who have aquired a taste for the
dry, grainy, mild pears, but those are the characteristics I have
avoided all my life, and will continue to do so, but I would like to
find the other ones.

Rodney in zone 4, low humidity, and lots of fresh air.

P.S. everyone should read the first 12 paragraphs at the above site so
here it is again
http://www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/pears03.asp

Are pears really that good? How do I find the good ones?