Baked Asian pears

Recently, while shopping at Costco (one of my least favorite things to do), I noticed a box of fruit labeled "Apple Pears". I, naturally, thought it was one of those weird hybrid fruits, borne out of some mad marketing scheme. But no, the "Apple Pears" were just Asian pears. Go figure. Anyway, the price was right, so I bought a box, and after eating two or three, decided to make some baked pears for a little variety.

The inspiration came from a show I saw about steamed Asian pears. This woman had cut in half this massively big pear (the size of a small watermelon), scooped out the seeds, and filled the cavity with honey, jujubes, ginkgo nuts and all sorts of goodies. I didn't have any of these things, nor did I have a steamer. So I put my halved pears into a baking dish, filled their tiny cavities with maple syrup, filled the baking dish with a little water, sprinkled some cinnamon and baked it in a 325 oven.

After about an hour and a half, I opened the oven to take the pears out and this strange thing happened to me: the warm smell of baking fruit, the steam from the oven, lifting the ceramic baking dish — I suddenly thought about baked apples, how I used to make baked apples all the time — why had I completely forgotten about baked apples — why did making baked pears seem so completely novel?

Why had I stopped making baked apples? Baked apples are fantastic. Why was no one else making baked apples? I can't remember the last time I'd read a recipe featuring baked apples. Caramel and candied apples are all over the place, but the equally good baked apples have disappeared from our collective memory (aka the media). Very strange.

The interesting thing about baked pears is how boozy the result was. I'd only added maple syrup and cinnamon, and yet, it tasted like I'd added a good quarter cup of eau de vie. Since I like boozy, the result was heaven. Or at least a little bit of heaven.

I'd give this dish a solid A.