COOKING IN: It's time to tuck into autumnal pears and figs, writes Hugo Arnold.
I'm all berried out. For months, pudding has been little more than bowls of soft, luscious fruit. Now it is the turn of pears and figs. Figs can be used to start or finish a meal: torn and served with thin Parma ham for a starter, or, for a dessert: cut into star shapes, flattened, sugared grilled and served with cream or mascarpone. Pears, too, are enthusiastic starters; thinly sliced into a salad with walnut and goats' cheese, or partnered with smoked duck.
These are all easy assemblies, more the result of judicious shopping than kitchen skill. But these fruits will also make the most glorious tarts, and, in the case of pears, can be puréed or juiced.
Buying fruit is no easy task. A pear needs some dedicated squeezing and sniffing to see if it is ripe. As for a fig, a gentle squeeze will reveal softness, but how many figs have I started to eat that were soft, but ended up tasting of virtually nothing?
Truth be told, too much fruit travels too far. This summer we picked cherries in the south of France from a farmer's orchard. The green light had been given as the harvest had already occurred. Yet every so often we would find a branch that had been missed. Harvesting and eating seemed like such a simple pleasure. But how rare.
Pears come in many guises these days. I remain rather partial to the plain and ordinary Conference. I'm attracted by its russet-like skin, the way the stem almost always breaks cleanly so you can eat it like a banana. That is until you get to the thick end. But it comes full of flavour, hopefully.
I've taken to sourcing my figs from ethnic stores. Middle Eastern ones may be hard to track down, but there is a fondness for figs in this region of the world which seems to ensure flavour as well as succulence.