Pears Stewed Purple
Learn about this recipe from our Historic Foodways staff, then try it at home.
Pears complement any meal. These are akin to pears in claret of a modern time. Slow cooking to allow the pears to become saturated is the key to their flavor. This is also excellent over ice cream.
Learn how we make this recipe in our kitchens based on the 18th-century description below, then use our 21st-century translation to try the recipe at home!
Watch How It's Made
18th Century
Pare six large winter pears, and either quarter them or do them whole: they make a pretty dish with one whole, the rest cut in quarters, and the cores taken out; lay them in a deep earthern pot, with a few cloves, a piece of lemon-peel, a gill of red wine, and a quarter of a pound of fine sugar...
— Glasse, Hannah, “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy”
21st Century
Ingredients
- A minimum of 3 pears
- 8 cloves
- Peel of one lemon with no white showing
- 1 to 2 cups of red wine (enough to cover your pears in the pan)
- ½ cup or more of sugar
Instructions
- Peel pears. Stand up all pears and choose one to be the centerpiece. If slightly lopsided, it can be trimmed on the bottom to be more vertical.
- Quarter and core the remaining pears. If pears are large, cut into eighths.
- Put all pears into the smallest saucepan that will hold them. Add cloves, lemon peel, red wine and sugar and bring to a simmer over medium heat and then reduce to a low or warm setting. Every few minutes, move the whole pear around to completely cover it with the wine mixture.
- Cook until deep purple. Let set several minutes for wine mixture to totally absorb into the pears.
- Arrange on a plate in a sunburst pattern with the whole one in the center.
Explore how to brew a pale ale like 18th-century Virginia housewives would have made.
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