I keep hearing about the Warren Pear! The WARREN PEAR! Oprah likes it. Martha likes it. The LA Times likes it. It was starting to feel ridiculous how much I was seeing this new-to-me variety pop up everywhere, which of course made my cynical side come out in full force. Why would Oprah and Martha both suddenly learn about a specific variety in the very same month of the very same year? It’s weird and screams more of expert marketing than excellent fruit. But I noticed that my local favorite location for unique varieties had procured a few and so I popped over to give them a try.
I guess I should step back and give an even bigger confession. I didn’t want to like them. I don’t particularly jump up and down about pears of any kind and there are only a few times a pear has wowed me. One being a Harrow Delight Pear that I tasted at a California Rare Fruit Growers convention. Don’t get any ideas with that statement. I am terrible at growing things and I didn’t go to learn – heavens no. I went for the fruit tastings and to meet some of the people that grow the fruit I happily consume. But that’s it. I think plants actually play dead when they see me coming because it is just so pointless for me to try. So there was this spectacular pear at the event and I just remember thinking – Wow! I have never tasted a pear like THAT. And I’ve never seen another one, though I haven’t tried. Like I said, I just don’t go out of my way for pears.
But back to the point – Warren Pears! Where would they fall on the spectrum? Let’s just say they are very very good and I certainly think you should consider sending them as a gift to someone this season, the way Oprah recommends, but for my taste they ended up sliced and turned in to dried fruit slices. Other reviews state they aren’t grainy, but mine were. So I’m not sure what happened there. Don’t get me wrong, these ARE the best darn pear slices I have ever tasted, but just a fruit slice nonetheless. When I truly love something, it doesn’t last long enough to make it to the oven.
APPEARANCE Rating: 
Mustard and rust colored skin with a nice long neck and plump body. White flesh.
AROMA Rating: 
Very mild, sweet vanilla with a hint of cinnamon or maybe even soft clove. Not sure.
TEXTURE Rating:
Dense with perfect amount of juice. Slightly gritty flesh. Smooth peel.
TASTE Rating:
Gorgeous flavor that starts out with a full vanilla, almost honey taste and then sinks in to a far more complex, spiced flavor.
OVERALL Overall Rating:
A great pear with complicated flavor and a rich texture. Very good but not worth going out of your way to find in my opinion. There are lots of pear varieties that are much easier to get and good enough. See: Seckel, Comice, Starkrimson, Bosc, and Bartlett for starters.
| FRUIT Pear |
PEAK Fall |
PROVIDED BY Specialty Produce |
| VARIETY Warren |
GROWN Frog Hollow Farms California |
COMMENTS!
Has anyone else tried the Warren Pears? What did you think? I would also love to hear about your experiences with something everyone just LOVED and you thought was just “good” or “ok” or even “bad”.
‘Warren’ pear appears to be from the same seedling population that produced the ‘Magness’ pear, a pear cultivar released by USDA in 1960. While the seedlings from which ‘Magness’ was selected were grown at the old Arlington Farm in Virginia, some of the seedlings were sent to the USDA research station in Meridien, Mississippi. Some grafted trees or seedlings apparently were planted at the Mississippi State University research station, or the
USDA station may have been co-located at the MSU station. T. O.Warren, a noted “fruit explorer” who I think was a founder of NAFEX (North American Fruit Explorers), apparently found the tree growing in an abandoned orchard at the old MSU station, and introduced it. David Karp, a journalist and fruit afficiando, wrote an article several years ago in the Los Angeles Times about the origin of the ‘Warren’ pear. I grew ‘Warren’ pear in the 1980’s, and found it very similar to ‘Magness’ in all traits. Later enzyme analysis , and perhaps DNA analysis, have shown the high similarity of the two cultivars, providing further evidence of the close relationship between the two cultivars.
So interesting. Thanks, Richard!