Second harvest of September - Red Anjou Pears

We harvested all the red pears today - Red Anjou's.  They are enormous!  Each one weighs about 325g! - which is about 13 ounces!!  The total weight we picked was more than 42 lbs from one small tree! 

They are now in the wine cellar - keeping cool - apart from some here in the kitchen that will go in smoothies, as part of them was pecked by the birds!!! "Bad birds".  Unfortunately that is phrase you often hear around Birdland during harvest time - both tree fruit and grapes - especially regarding the Jays who eat the tree fruit and the wild turkeys who eat masses of grapes!

Some of them are so dark in color - it's more a maroon than red. 

One year, we grew one in a bottle.  Have you ever seen that?  When the fruit is small, you tie a small necked bottle onto the tree with the pear inside it.  If you are lucky - and it doesn't always work, the pear continues to grow in the bottle. You then harvest it and it looks so cool - as of course, it's much bigger than the neck of the bottle. You then fill the bottle with eau de vie - "water of life" which is a brandy made from pears!  

Traditionally it's done using a "William" pear ( the Bartlett in the US) and then is called "Poire William". We first saw when we stopped for lunch in a small village in Peru!  We thought "what a wonderful idea" and so occasionally, we give it a try.

Last time we did it, the pear grew so big in the bottle, that when we came to add the brandy - it wouldn't go into the bottle.  The pear had sealed it completely. We had to let the pear shrivel for a couple of days before the liquid would go in!

Wish I had a photo of ours with the red pear in. It looks even better!  The only sad part is that after drinking the eau de vie, it would be nice to eat the yummy pear - but it's way too difficult to get it out!!!

If you have a fruit tree - you should give it a go next year?  It'll work with apples too and  then add calvados Just remember to secure the bottle on the tree so that water will drain out of it as it grows.  Let me know if you try it!