UNIVERSITY PARK, (Centre
Co.) Health-conscious Ameri
cans are eating more varieties of
fruit than ever before, yet many
consumers are at a loss when it
comes to determining ripeness.
A typical shopper might buy a
bunch of green bananas and store
them in a fruit bowl with apples
and pears, only to return a few
days later to find his bananas soft
er than a one-minute egg.
“Sometimes, even I can’t tell
how ripe something is by just
looking at it,” says Kathleen
Evensen, associate professor of
postharvest physiology in Penn
State’s College of Agricultural
Sciences. “It's best to find what
you like and then look for the
characteristics of that fruit.”
Evensen says the best way to
ensure tasty fruit is to know how it
ripens. She explains that horticul
turists have divided fruit into two
categories: climacteric and non
climacteric.
Climacteric fruit (apples, pears,
tomatoes, avocados, bananas,
peaches, nectarines and other
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4M LociWt St.
717-248-3088
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GOODSLAWN &
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717-384-4028 Ext 34
Ellzabathtown
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tropical fruit) can ripen after being
picked. Climacteric fruit also
emits a colorless gas called ethyl
ene, which acts as a ripening
agent.
“Ripening apples, pears and
bananas can give off a lot of ethyl
ene,” Evensen says.
“In an enclosed area like a fruit
bowl, mixed fruit can ripen very
quickly,” she adds. “In fact, if you
put a ripe banana in a bag with an
apple, the banana will ripen the
apple—but the apple will smell
like a banana”
Non-climacteric fruit (citrus
fruits, grapes, strawberries and
small berries) is ripe when picked
and does not give off ethylene
unless the fruit is infected by a
fungus. Evensen says these fruits
do not improve with age. “You
buy them, you refrigerate them
and then you eat them,” Evensen
says. “For instance, strawberries
should be refrigerated immediate
ly, even if the berries have some
white on top. They are never
going to get any riper.”
Evensen warns that ripening
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Fruit Ready
varies with each type of fruit and
even within the same species.
However, you can ripen most fruit
by remembering just a few guide
lines.
For example, bananas are
picked green and shipped to U.S.
ports where they are treated with
ethylene for about 24 hours.
Stored at a warmer temperature
than other fruit, the bananas vtfll
continue to ripen during shipment,
in the store and in your home.
“Refrigeration slows down
ripening in bananas, but the cold
temperature makes bananas, a
tropical fruit, turn black and go
soft,” Evensen says.
Tomatoes are also picked green
and treated with ethylene for 24
hours so they ripen during ship
ping. Evensen does not recom
mend refrigerating tomatoes. If
tomatoes still show some green,
leave them out to ripen.
In many cases, refrigeration
will stop the production of ethyl
ene in apples and some pears, giv
ing these fruits a longer shelf life
once they're purchased.
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To Eat?
Apples are picked at what
growers call “optimum maturity,”
just before they start to ripen. The
fruit is then stored at low tempera
tures and with low levels of oxy
gen and carbon dioxide (called
“controlled atmosphere”) to retard
ripening. “Apples can be kept by
growers for 12 to 14 months in
controlled atmosphere storage,”
Evensen says.
“If you buy something that’s
not as ripe as you would like, just
leave it out for a while and then
refrigerate it,” Evensen says.
“Growers are producing fruit
that is firmer, in order to stand up
to shipping, so it’s harder for con
sumers to really tell if it has
reached the right ripeness,” Evensen
says.
Non-climacteric fruit such as
oranges, lemons, grapefruit and
limes can be treated with ethylene
as well, but the gas only makes the
fruit’s rind turn from green to a
color consumers are familiar with.
“That’s called de-greening, but
that doesn’t affect the taste of the
fruit. It will taste the same the
moment you pick it from the tree
as it will after you’ve bought it in
a store a week later,” Evensen
says.
Another indicator of ripeness is
what fruit experts call “ground
color,” Evensen explains. Ground
color is the level of green color
still in the fruit. Simply put, the
less green you see, the riper the
Christmas In Lititz
LITITZ (Lancaster Co.)
The tenth annual Tour of Homes
features eight of Lititz’s finest
homes, a church, an historical
educational building, and a con
servancy and museum in the
greater Lititz area. The Christmas
In Little House Tour is Saturday,
December 10, from 10 a.m. to 4
p.m.
The homes offer an interesting
range of styles, size, and age.
Included are an elegant Virginia
Tidewater style, a lovely Geor
gian, a unique Victorian, an idyl-
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 12, 1994-819
Kiwis also can show ripeness
through ground color. “You can
see green beneath all that fuzzy
stuff,” Evensen assures.
Watermelon ripeness is harder
to determine, Evensen says. “The
best method is to knock on them.
They’re supposed to sound kind
of hollow.”
Folk wisdom about ripening
fruit, like sticking a nail into the
bottom of a pear or apple, is
largely baseless. “If you puncture
fruit it will produce ethylene, but
who would want to eat it after a
nail has been in it,” she said.
Still, Evensen says that one
bad apple really does spoil the
whole bunch. “A rotten apple will
overripen the fruit near it and pass
on any disease to its neighbors,”
she said.
House Tour
lie country bed and breakfast, an
historic “oldie” Pennsylvania Field
Stone, and more. From traditional
to contemporary, the tour offers
something for every one.
Tickets may be purchased in
advance for $5, $6 the day of the
tour. Bus tickets may be pur
chased for $8 advance by Decem
ber 1, 1994. The bus departs from
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church at
12:00 noon and returns at approx.
4:15 p.m. The church is located at
200 W. Orange St.
fruit. For example, a Golden Deli
cious apple can be quite green in a
store bin, losing that color over
time until it turns yellow; The
trick, Gvensen says, is to find out
what stage of ripeness suits your
taste.
The taste of some climacteric
fruits, such as melons, do not
improve much after harvest,
because they get most of their fla
vor from the plant’s vine. For
cantaloupes, shoppers can smell
the fruit or look at ground color
beneath the rough exterior of the
melon. “If it doesn’t smell like a
cantaloupe, it’s not ripe," she
says.