History of pear and sandwich 

According to a legend, Polyphemus, in order to impress the beautiful nymph Galatea, thought of enumerating her riches: land, woods, beaches, flocks, but exalting particularly a pear orchard. In the Odyssey, Homer also mentions the pear tree among the plants in the garden of King Alicnous at Laertes.

The pear tree, with its white or slightly pinkish flowers, was already known to the peoples of Western Asia. From here the varieties arrived in Greece, where they spread and began to be cultivated in some way in 600 B.C. Already in 350 B.C. the cultivation of this tree was quite extensive in Magna Graecia, because Theophrastus mentions both both domestic and cultivated varieties. In Roman times Cato and, above all, Pliny gives precise indications on the spread of the and its cultivars, testifying to the consideration in to which this fruit bearing was kept. In Cato's time, the there were only 6 known cultivars, but two centuries later Pliny he mentions about 40 of them.

Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie, gardener to the Sun King Louis XIV, boasted of having selected 500 different varieties of pears, with growing times distributed throughout the year, so that, theoretically, every day the sovereign could taste a different one. The king's gardener gave an account of this extraordinary virtuosity in a treatise on pomology (Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers) published in 1690. Louis XIV's passion for pears was shared, at the time, by a large part of the European nobility. A veritable "pear madness," as one historian has called it, marked the predilections and tastes of the upper classes. The court cookbooks suggested many ways to use it. Special manuals taught how to "chop" it, that is, clean it and cut it into attractive and bizarre shapes.

In a way, it was the culmination of a story that had begun several centuries earlier. A story of tastes and flavours, but also of symbols and images. Since the Middle Ages, in fact, fruit was a real sign of noble gluttony. Above all, delicate and perishable fruit - such as the pear - conveyed the idea of food luxury, of choices linked not to the daily fight against hunger, but to the pleasure of the superfluous.

However, medieval physicians generally advised against the use of fresh fruits. They warned against the excessive 'frigidity' of their nature, which, if they really wanted to indulge in the pleasure of gluttony and social prestige, needed some corrections.

On the basis of the principle of 'temperament', which the science of the time drew from the Hippocratic and Galenic tradition (compensating for the natural imbalances of food with appropriate treatments and manipulations), that cold had to be 'heated' and this was recommended to be done mainly in two ways: either by accompanying the fruits with a full-bodied wine, or by cooking them in the heat of the fire, maybe even in wine. These teachings and practices gave rise to proverbial sayings that have remained in use in various European languages: "after the pear, the wine" is a saying attested in France and England since the fifteenth century. Other texts insist on the need to cook: "If poison the pear is said, let the cursed pear be", reads a text from the Salerno medical school; "But when it's cooked, it's reduced to an antidote." The pear cooked in wine, which still appears at the end of many menus, especially in the popular sphere, is the epigone of this ancient culture, which has happily remained in our traditions because it also works in terms of taste.

But little by little, dietary beliefs changed, partly because food had changed. The seventeenth-century "madness" for the pear was not the simple revival of a gastronomic and symbolic model built in the Middle Ages. It was also the result of the changes made to the raw material by the patient work of gardeners, peasants, agronomists: many anonymous and unknown, some (like Louis XIV's gardener) who rose to court honors and were proud of their profession to the point of wanting to leave a memory of it in powerful works of theoretical reflection and practical teaching. The species multiplied, the fruits became more and more pleasant and sweet, manifesting a different identity right from the taste. The culture of an era is also measured by the articulation and richness of its relationship with food. Of the five hundred species of pears described by Quintinie in his Instruction, how many would we be able to recognize today even though we have over 5000 different varieties available? Try the sandwich with walnut salami, brie, caramelized pears and rocket.

Preparation

Slice the pear into small cubes, then brown it in a pan with a tablespoon of brown sugar and let it caramelize well. Deglaze with lemon juice and season with a pinch of salt, then set aside. Slice the brie and salami into thin slices. Place the sliced brie on the base of the bread and melt in the oven at 180°C for 3-4 minutes, toast the other slice of bread as well. Place the salami on the slice of bread with the brie, complete with the caramelized pears and rocket lightly seasoned with oil and salt, then close the sandwich.