The pear cider experiment
Our pear trees were morphing into quinces, so we came up with a plan.
Tony said, “It could make us all millionaires!” He laughed, and so did we. The idea was quite preposterous. But still, it wasn’t a bad thought: making cider vinegar from the fruit in our orchard.
Tony, our neighbour and the sort of fellow who insists on the wearing of shorts in all seasons, albeit with long johns when there’s a winter southerly, had turned up at cocktail hour with a question: do we have any apple trees? Well, yes, we do, but only the one. It stands alone in a paddock, unloved by all except Miles the sheep farmer’s lambs, who are the only ones mildly keen on its fruit.
What we do have is pears. Our property was once the centre of a modestly large but, in the end, unsuccessful pear and apple orchard. The story – as told to us by Tony and others – goes that the previous owner had invested big in growing both fruits, as many in the Wairarapa basin did, towards the end of last century. Times were good, until they weren’t. The business was killed not only by the closure of the only local packhouse in the late 90s – shipping fruit to Hawke’s Bay for boxing proved uneconomical – but also by the deregulation of centralised apple and pear marketing in 2001. Our bloke’s orchard was slowly sold off into 10-acre blocks to pay off debt, the trees were cut down and the paddocks and his modest dream returned to grass.
But a remnant of what was lost remains. In one of our fields, the last pear trees stand, overgrown, a little spooky – you fancy you may see Sleepy Hollow’s Headless Horseman – and slowly morphing into quince trees, which is the rootstock growers sometimes use to control the size of the pear trees and make them fruit early.
But come autumn, the beurré bosc pears are still delicious – though when poached with cream and a vanilla pod they are more like divine – and last autumn, the Artist used some of our many quinces to make his wonderful, sticky pink paste for spreading on crackers with any blue cheese, but particularly Miles’s own moreish Tinui Blue.
So no apples but plenty of pears, we told Tony. But what did he want apples for? He explained that – as some farmers do – he used apple cider vinegar to keep his livestock healthy. It’s all about probiotics, apparently. Animals are like people, Tony reckons: if they’re healthy, they tend to stay healthy if they do the right things.
So to help make sure his stock stays tickety-boo, he gives them apple cider vinegar. The only trouble is this elixir doesn’t come cheap, so he had a thought: why not make his own?
He rang a mate, who happens to be a chef at Rimutaka Prison, to ask whether he could make his own apple cider vinegar. Sure, said the mate; all you need is a big container, a bit of sugar, a dark place – and apples, of course. This was where we came in. Or as it turned out, where we didn’t.
Fortunately, cocktail hour is when all the best thinking is done. We wondered whether you could make pear cider vinegar instead of apple. “Google it,” said Tony. It seems you can.
“Is pear cider vinegar also probiotic?” asked Michele. “Google it,” said Tony. It seems it is.
A week later, he turned up, at cocktail hour again, this time with a couple of big yellow plastic drums on the back of his ute, and asked whether we had room in a dark shed for them. It seems we do.
So that’s that then: we’re going into the pear cider vinegar business. It could make us all millionaires. Well, provided things don’t go, you know, pear-shaped. But whatever happens, in a week or two the pears will be ripe, Tony and his kids will come over with ladders and the old orchard, a modest dream long dead, will come alive again.
Tony uses apple cider vinegar to keep his livestock healthy. It’s all about probiotics, apparently.