National Pears Helene Day

National Pears Helene Day is on March 15th in the United States.

From this dish's name it's obvious that it contains pears. However, it certainly doesn't contain Helene. It is also sometimes called Pears Belle Helene.

This is a dessert dish that uses pears as a base. Firm dessert pears such as Bartlett are the best types. The pears need to be cooked, either by purchasing them that way, or using fresh and cooking them.

To serve, they are halved and served with vanilla ice cream as well as a chocolate sauce.

There are easy ways and hard ways of making this dish. The easy way is to buy tinned pears and pre-made chocolate sauce. The hard way is, of course, to make everything from scratch. The easy way can be done quite simply if the ingredients are already to hand, and most will keep quite well.

National Pear Month

In the United States December is National Pear Month.

This might seem an odd time of year to have a fruit month, being in the middle of winter, but this month is supported by the United States Department of Agriculture. The reason being that fruit is still needed during the winter months - perhaps more so - and pears are actually one of the ones that are in season at this time of year.

Pears are a fruit tree whose cultivation as a food source dates back to antiquity and is native to the temperate regions stretching from Europe and Africa to Asia. The fruit is both a good source of dietary fibre and vitamin C - the latter especially beneficial during winter - but it should be noted that the vast majority of both of these nutrients is contained in the skin of the fruit, so peeling the fruit destroys much of its nutritional value, so eating them raw, like apples, is probably the best way. Not every pear grows in the stereotypical pear shape though.