Pears in Honey

Last night was another canning pears night. I took a page from my friend, Debbi's, method and substituted 1 cup of honey for one cup of the sugar. Have to say, it was the darkest honey I've ever seen. When I first picked up the bottle, I thought it was molasses. That's pretty dark for a honey named "Golden Honey." It's from Michigan, and I'd love to find a local source, or at least Kentucky. I know a beekeeper in Oak Ridge, and my friend Carol has two hives, but she just gets enough for her own use. I don't know any beekeepers around here; I figure there have to be some. Will look in the Beekeeper Association's member list and see if I can find one.

Edited 8/21/11 to say that, as usual with almost everything, west Kentucky doesn't seem to have many beekeepers. Per the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the closest beekeeping association is Lake Barkley Beekeepers Association based out of Mayfield. I sent an email to the president asking for info on local beekeepers. We'll see what turns up.

Searching further, I found Broyles Apiary in Paducah from the Buy Kentucky page of the KY Dept of Ag.  Here's one that's a bit too far to travel to, 12 miles east out of Mayfield - Honey Hill Apiary. Apparently, they sell at the Trading Post, 127 W. Broadway (between 7th and 8th on 80.) The Kentucky Nut Corporation in Hickman comes up as selling honey on the KY DA page, but not on their website. I'd still probably get lost trying to find it. You can buy their pecans online, but I didn't check out the shipping. Their prices seem to be pretty good if they're updated.

The Tennessee Beekeepers Association has a bit more information than the Kentucky Assoc., and has a map showing a few bee colonies just south of the Kentucky state line. Click here to see that. While you're looking at that, you can note that I lived for more than 20 years in Anderson County, in the upper center of the red, east, district, where I was used to seeing local honey for sale all the time.

Pears!

To my great delight, I discovered one of the trees in my dad's yard is brimming over with pears. Since there was no pruning or spraying done, I really didn't expect much from any of his fruit trees. The apple trees produced little knotty things that I didn't even try to do anything with. But the other day while sitting on the patio talking to Cuz Jill, I looked out and beheld a tree dripping pears.

Since I've never done anything with pears, I hopped onto the internet and learned that pears should be picked green and allowed to ripen in a cool dark place to discourage the seediness (I forget the name) that you find in the center of the pears. The description of when to pick the pears says that they should break easily off the tree and also that whenever they start falling off, they're ready.

Okay. I feel the pears, and they feel like rocks, so I have my doubts. However, I harvested 4 sacks and sat them in the basement. After 4 days they hadn't changed much, but a few were beginning to have a little give when gripped. That was the point the internet said you should start canning them.

Lemme tell ya, peeling, pitting and slicing those babies didn't go quite as quickly as I'd dreamed about. They still feel pretty hard to me. My hope is that the canning process softens them up. I did a batch of 7 pint jars in a thin syrup, and they sure look pretty. I left one in the refrigerator overnight to check the next day. I just went and opened it, and by golly, it worked. There's a little bit more tooth than commercially canned pears, but not much, at least not in the pieces I tasted. Yay!

So now I guess I've got my work cut out for me. Aunt Agnes? You want some pears to can? You're welcome to them.

Because these are homegrown and unsprayed, they're not the largest pears in the world. Certainly not up to what you'd see in the grocery store. I figured about 4-5 pears per pint and added an extra jar's worth to make up for bad spots cut out and variable sizes. That came out just right for the 7 jars that fit in the water bath canner. That makes about 32-35 pears per batch. Now I just need to find a personal pear peeler to work for me for free, yeah.