The pears in the second crate

Text: an original contemporary food-project-commentary-style practice extract.

When the fruit delivery arrived at the community kitchen, I placed the smooth pears in a crate marked USE and the scarred ones in a crate marked WASTE. The distinction seemed obvious. One group would be arranged on the serving table; the other had dents, rough patches and marks that customers would notice.

Farah, who was preparing a pear sauce, took three fruits from the second crate. She cut each one open rather than defending them in general terms. One contained a patch of mould, and she discarded it immediately. The flesh of the other two was unmarked beneath the damaged skin, so she peeled them, added them to the pan and invited me to taste the finished sauce. Its flavour was fuller than the sauce from the firmer pears I had chosen for their appearance.

A successful spoonful does not prove that every bruised fruit is suitable for cooking. Some damage is more than cosmetic, and Farah’s decision to reject one pear was as important as her decision to use the others. Nor are attractive ingredients automatically wasteful choices. What changed was the confidence with which I had treated appearance as a complete inspection. We replaced the WASTE label with CHECK FIRST and began cutting open marked fruit before deciding whether it could be used.

In this extract, the writer tries to challenge the assumption that food with an imperfect appearance is not worth using.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.