Book review by Eileen Woodford
The Book of Pears: The Definitive History and Guide to Over 500 Varieties
By Joan Morgan
With paintings by Elisabeth Dowle
Our pear trees at Shirley Place are tucked into themselves now that winter is upon us. The blossoms, the fruit, and now even the leaves are long past and gone. We know, however dead the pears may look to us, that they have a secret life going on in them. They are dormant – “marked by a suspension of activity” according to the online Merriam Webster dictionary from the Latin dormire "to sleep." However, their dormancy doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy a feast of pears this winter. We can read about them in Joan Morgan’s visually lush “The Book of Pears.”
I discovered the existence of this book over the summer while researching our August blog post about our pear varieties at Shirley Place. I couldn’t get a copy from the library–no reason to explain why–until August after I had handed my article to our blog editors. I was disappointed but understood given that librarians had a lot to do after the reopening. I finally got an email from the Cambridge Public Library telling me that the book was ready for pick up. When I got there, the librarian handed me one of the most beautiful books I have ever held.
Part horticultural history, part travelogue, part gushing love story, the book is a glorious exploration of the hundreds of cultivars of Pyrus Communis and their origins. The history of the cultivated pear stretches back thousands of years. The ancients revered pears and, starting with the earliest times of horticulture, the fruit became the focus of widespread searches for the sweetest and most aromatic fruits. No armchair historian, Morgan, a pomologist and fruit historian, takes the reader on a road trip to northeast Iran, Syria and Kurdistan Iraq to delve into the origins of the western pear – only to say we really don’t know, but isn’t it fun to try and figure this evolutionary puzzle out. After this, we travel with Morgan through Roman times and the debates about the morality of grafting; Medieval Europe, when the pear becomes the subject of intense correspondences between kings, nobles and monks about their cultivation, storage and use; and Renaissance Italy, where fresh fruit became a triumphant finale to any feasts worth noting, resulting in the introduction of new varieties of pears of improved quality.
But it is when we get to France in the 17th century that the passion for pears explodes. It is a dizzying collision of advances in horticultural science, new husbandry techniques and a runaway food craze among the aristocrats. The result is a proliferation of new cultivars with names as elaborate as the Louis IV’s lace and with descriptions of their taste (buttery,) flesh (melting, pink-tinged) and perfume (musky) that border on the sensual.
Everything about French pears during this time is haute.
As Morgan brings us into the 18th and 19th centuries, she introduces us to market pears. This is where our Shirley Place pears come into the story as Morgan deftly weaves together commercial history and horticultural history as horticulturalists in France, England and North America seek ways to bring pears to rapidly growing urban populations. While storage was always an important part of pear cultivation, larger scale commercial shipping and storage became more important than personal cultivation. Disease resistance, ease of growing and guaranteed outcomes in taste, took over as primary considerations. Enter the Bartlett. It was – and still is – appealing for the great productiveness of its trees, good size and, most importantly, can be picked while still ‘green’ and transported long distances. Most pears, unlike other fruits, ripen off the tree. The 20th century brings us refrigeration and pears from Oregon, California, and with NAFTA, Chile.
I cannot leave The Book of Pears without some comment on the names. They are as diverse as the pears themselves. The Italians go in for strong names: Volpina and Fiorenza. The French seem to name them after their mistresses: Duchesse d’Angoulême – or their saints: Jeanne d’Arc. The British name them after their clergy: Vicar of Winkfield, and the Americans after themselves: Bartlett, Richard Peters. (Enoch Bartlett, the man who pasted his moniker on the Bartlett, had an orchard next door to Shirley Place and advised Madam Eustis in her own horticultural efforts.)
We are just beginning to understand the extensive research that we need to understand the full horticultural history of Shirley Place. Our little orchard of apples, pears and cherry trees is a portal not just into the long history of fruit cultivation, but a part of the significant history of horticultural innovation in fruit propagation in the Boston area during the first half of the 19th century – the history that has led the Bartlett pear to be the single most produced fruit in the United States.
I don’t want to return this book to the library. I love lingering over the color plates – watercolors of different varieties of pears. I find not just solace, but joy and hope in this book. It is about growth and beauty, desire and satiety. It is about what humans will do to achieve perfection in a single bite of fruit.
In the meantime, as the virus continues to rage outside, get this book from your library and sink into a delightful exploration of pears. Of course, a glass of perry along with a slice of buttery pear tart would be a lovely accompaniment to your reading. The feast can continue over the winter.