Spicy Asian Pear Applesauce (and science)

• 4 Asian Pears
• 4 Apples (I used Gravensteins, because they’re in season in California now and are good for cooking)
• 1/8 c. Apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 c. Water
• Big squirt of agave nectar (plus more to taste)
• Spices: cayenne pepper, chile powder (to taste)

Peel and core the asian pears and apples. Chop them into small chunks, say 1/4 inch pieces. Put the chunks into a medium sized pot and set on low heat. In a measuring cup, mix vinegar and water and agave. Swirl together and pour over apple bits. Give everything a stir and bring to a low simmer. Sprinkle some cayenne and chile powder over the apples and pears. I recommend starting on the mild side - spices can get more intense the longer they cook, and you can always add more later. Cover the pot and trust that you are not fucking this up. The mixture will need to cook about 45 minutes, to get really squishy, longer if you didn’t chop the pieces as fine. Give a stir every once in a while. Take a taste. Adjust seasonings and sweetness. If you like finer applesauce you can use a fork to smush chunks against a wooden spoon. Cool the applesauce, refrigerate and eat it within a week.

What do you do with this mixture? I have no idea yet. So far, I know it’s good plain. I bet it’d be yummy on top of vanilla gelato or mixed into Greek yogurt. If you make it spicy enough, it’d be good heated up on top of crispy-fried tofu.  

Now the science.

As the apples are cooking you’ll notice them turning into a squishy mess. I don’t really understand the details of what’s going on there, but I’m going to take some educated guesses and share those with you here, starting with the basics. Remember in 6th grade when Ms. Cassola taught you about plant cells? No. Of course you don’t. You were drawing the members of Metallica with huge boners surrounded by pentagrams on the inside of your Trapper Keeper. That’s ok, I don’t remember about multiplying matrices, so maybe you could tell me about that next time. I’m down to trade.  

Living things have cells: plants have plant cells, animals have animal cells. Viewed under a microscope, plant cells look like neatly arranged rectangles; actually, they look like the cells in a jail, or a monastery, which is how they got their name. Plant cells have walls, which hold them together (much like the walls of your parents’ basement are holding in the pathetic scraps of your unemployed existence from spilling out onto the street). When they’re alive, cell walls keep the apple cell guts inside. But once the apple is picked and cooked the cells die, things start falling apart, and everything goes to tasty tasty applesauce hell.

Plant cell walls are made of carbohydrates, which is a fancy word for sugars. The main sugars in cell walls are cellulose and pectin. These sugars are made of polysaccharides, a Greek term “many saccharides”, which is science for saying that lots of small sugars link up with chemical bonds and make a longer sugar chain. For example, cellulose is a chain made up of many glucose molecules. Humans have enzymes that allow us to digest glucose; however we can’t digest straight cellulose.

Polysaccharide chains give the cell wall its rigid structure (animal cell membranes, in contrast, are made of fats and cholesterol and are squishy). Cell walls also have some proteins thrown in to the mix. Proteins are also long chains of molecules called polypeptides. Proteins are complicated folded-up origami chains of these polypeptide molecules connected by chemical bonds. 

Heat does funny things to bonds. In the case of polysaccharides, heat causes the long chains to break up into smaller, constituent “simpler” sugars. These can be sugars that are easier for humans to digest (you can read all about this hype on websites extolling low glycemic index diets). Proteins are also destroyed by heat; bonds get broken and the protein unfolds. This is called denaturation. Acidity (e.g, from the apple cider vinegar) can contribute to denaturing proteins as well. All of this turns the cell walls into a gooey mess. 

That gooey mess is why plants are tasty. But plants, like everything else alive, are largely water by volume. In cells, water is held in vacuoles, which are basically water balloons. The heat from cooking causes water molecules to move around and expand inside the vacuole. When the vacuole membrane bursts from the heat and expansion, the water inside is released. This water boils off as steam, resulting in a dramatic loss of volume as the apples cook. The more water boils off, the more concentrated the sugariness of the remaining apple-goo. So, if you want sweeter applesauce, cook the mixture down more. If you’re lazy, you could also add more agave nectar.