Bartlett pear
Pyrus communis 'Williams' · Pome fruit
Top 10 pairings
The Bartlett — known almost everywhere outside North America as the Williams, or Williams' Bon Chrétien — is the archetypal "pear-shaped" pear: a smooth-skinned, bell-bodied fruit that ripens from grass-green to a clear bright gold, going intensely juicy, soft and perfumed. It is the world's most widely grown pear and the flavour most people picture when they think of pear: the taste of tinned pears, pear nectar, baby-food purée and the Poire Williams eau-de-vie.
Picking a good onedrag
UnderripeOverripe
Just ripeEat itNeck yields, body still firm. Slices clean for salads, cheese, tarts.
NeckGives to gentle thumb press
FleshBody still firm to a thumb
SkinTaut with a faint sheen
SmellFaint sweetness at the neck
Reading a just ripe one. Move the slider and the rest of this page — nutrition, pairings — updates with it. These cues are Pear's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
90%
Edible part
178 g · core out
198 g
Weight each
each one
70%
Juice
700 ml a kilo, pressed
Keeping ittap a temperature
A domestic fridge holds it about 7× longer than the counter.
90-95%
Humidity
Vented, never airtight
Airflow