How I keep a cut pear from browning

Half a pear is already on the board for tea — white, juicy — and the cut breathes in the air. In an hour the edge greys, the children say “spoilt”. I brush the cut with a drop of lemon or press film to the flesh, into the cool — I don’t leave it bare on a napkin.

How I keep a cut pear from browning. A whole pear — eat today or stew tomorrow — is another branch; avocado finished the same day is another tip; banana for morning porridge is another shelf. Here it is pear for tea after the knife: acid or film, pale flesh — not about the ripeness of the whole fruit.

Only the edge greyed — I trim thin on the board, I don’t bin the half. I don’t bathe it in lemon if tea doesn’t want sourness: a drop on the cut is enough. I’m not reviewing a new variety with a tasting here — it’s about the half that already lies at ours.

I don’t need a pear that by evening cools as a rust puddle on the saucer. I need a cut from the cold from which tea still smells of the garden. In your kitchen do you shut a cut pear for tea — or is there already a grey edge of shame on the board?