The hard green canning pear heavy with fruit. These were planted around many now-abandoned rural homes, but the long-lived trees still produce.

    Almost every old house site in the Eastern half of the nation once had its own set of fruit trees.  Among the most long-lived is a hard green canning pear that usually fruits in mid-August in Georgia. On good years these trees have abundant fruit, but these never get soft enough to eat. These pears were selected so that they would remain hard, even when ready to harvest. They were mostly used to make pear preserves and pear relish.

  Any old cook book will have these recipes. There is an easier way to convert these pears into food products. The larger pears may be split in half, the seeds removed and poached in water to make a good tasting dessert with a little cool whip or ice cream. Or they may be peeled and boiled to provide a pear sauce that is better tasting than apple sauce. If the pears are not completely crushed or some are purposefully added later some chewy pieces will remain to convert the sauce to a pie filling that needs only a few eggs to complete it.

  In the batch that I made on the video I actually added two of the big mixing spoons of butter, rather than the tablespoons that I mentioned. You can also add a quarter-cup of flour to the pie mix to thicken it prior to baking along with 4-5 eggs.

  The video below will take you through the process. If  for any reason it does not run well, it is also available on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqXWhEUcpC4&layer_token=1b5a791da552e934. Click on this address to view the video.