Mirrored from The OEconomist. You can comment there or here.

Pears are going cheap at present, so we’ve been buying them by the bagful and I’ve been stewing them and having them with homemade muesli and yoghurt for breakfast.

Stewed pears with figs and rosewater

This is based loosely on, or perhaps I should say vaguely inspired by, medieval recipes I learned through the SCA. An example is Perys en composte. That one uses wine and sandalwood, so as you can see it’s not very close, but there’s at least a vague relation.

In any case, here’s what mine has:

• 6 pears, peeled and diced
• 8 dried figs, chopped
• a handful of raisins
• big spoonful of honey
• slosh of water
• slosh of rosewater
• cinnamon
• nutmeg

The measurements aren’t exact, but it’s hard to go wrong. Just throw them all in a pot and simmer until the pears are cooked and the dried fruit has softened and plumped up a bit. (If you don’t know where to find rosewater, try a middle-eastern grocery, where it should be easily found and quite inexpensive.)

This would be great with porridge/oatmeal if you happened to like it, which I don’t. It could also go with pancakes or with vanilla icecream as desert.