Australian Pears, the industry body for Australian pear growers, has teamed up with Australian cooks and chefs, including Maggie Beer and Vincent Gadan, to release a cookbook called ‘Rediscover Australian Pears’.

Due to hit bookstore shelves on 7 June 2013, the new cookbook is a collection of original pear recipes, which Australian Pears says “celebrates the versatility of the iconic fruit through sweet and savoury recipes”.

Country cook Maggie Beer, who owns an orchard in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, has seven recipes in the new collection.

“Being a pear grower myself, it’s no secret that I have a fondness for this delightful fruit,” Ms Beer said. “The cookbook is a great way for home cooks to understand how pears can work well in both sweet and savoury dishes and which kind of pear is suited to which dish,” she said.

Ms Beer said she grows several varieties of pear, including Duchess, Packham’s Triumph, Josephine de Malines and Corella pears.

According to Australia Pears, the Australian industry produces 130,000 tonnes of the fruit each year.

The new marketing by Australian Pears may not necessarily overcome the tough conditions being experienced by fruit growers in Australia.

As previously reported by Australian Food News, SPC Ardmona has cut back on supply quota for its growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley, one of Australia’s primary fruit-growing regions.

The high Australian dollar and a boom in cheaper fruit imports from South Africa and elsewhere has been blamed for the difficulties of the Australian fruit industry.

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