Keeping Pears with Honey and Ginger
Firm pears long-poached in wine and honey, perfumed with ginger and cinnamon. A dense compote that keeps, sweet-spiced, served on major feasts.
Firm pears long-poached in wine and honey, perfumed with ginger and cinnamon. A dense compote that keeps, sweet-spiced, served on major feasts.
Our pear trees give only small, hard fruits like stone, good for nothing raw. But I have them cooked for hours in wine and honey, with a little ginger and cinnamon from the fair, until they brown and melt. Thus treated, they keep in their syrup well after All Saints, and I have them served to the sisters on a great feast day, as a permitted sweetness. Taste, and let this sweetness remind you of that higher one my soul seeks.
- •Hard keeping pears — a full basket (fruit)
- •Honey — generously (sugar and preservative)
- •Red wine — enough to cover (cooking liquid)
- •Ginger and cinnamon — a little of each (feast spices)
Keeping Pears with Honey and Ginger
Firm pears long-poached in wine and honey, perfumed with ginger and cinnamon. A dense compote that keeps, sweet-spiced, served on major feasts.
Why this dish? The abbey orchards yielded hard pears called 'keepers' or 'wardons'; candied in honey, they kept well and offered a rare sweetness on feast days, when the abbess allowed a sweet 'general'. A modest joy in a life governed by renunciation.
Our pear trees give only small, hard fruits like stone, good for nothing raw. But I have them cooked for hours in wine and honey, with a little ginger and cinnamon from the fair, until they brown and melt. Thus treated, they keep in their syrup well after All Saints, and I have them served to the sisters on a great feast day, as a permitted sweetness. Taste, and let this sweetness remind you of that higher one my soul seeks.
Ingredients (period version)
- Hard keeping pears — a full basket (fruit)
- Honey — generously (sugar and preservative)
- Red wine — enough to cover (cooking liquid)
- Ginger and cinnamon — a little of each (feast spices)
Ingredients
- Firm pears (e.g., Conference, not too ripe) — 6 (fruit)
- Honey — 150 g (sugar)
- Red wine — 400 ml (or grape juice) (cooking liquid)
- Fresh grated ginger — 1 tsp (spice)
- Cinnamon — 1 stick (spice)
Method
- Peel the pears, leaving the stem, stand them upright in a narrow pot.
- Cover with wine (or grape juice), add honey, ginger, and cinnamon stick.
- Poach at a gentle simmer 45 min to 1 h, until pears are tender and colored.
- Remove pears, reduce syrup by half until it coats a spoon.
- Return pears to syrup; serve warm, or pack into sterilized jars to store.
- Non-alcoholic version: replace wine with red grape juice.
How it was made : 'Wardons' (keeping pears) cooked in wine and spices are attested in medieval recipe collections. Without refined sugar, they were candied in honey, whose concentration prevented microbial growth: it was both a treat and a technique for preserving hard fruits for winter. Cinnamon and ginger, imported via trade routes, were a feast-day luxury.
The contemporary twist : Plate a glistening pear on a slate, napped with its syrup reduced to a mirror, with a sliver of gingerbread: a revisited medieval tavern dessert.
Sources : Le Mesnagier de Paris (1393) · Le Viandier (c. 1300)
Beatrice of Nazareth · Charactorium