Pear Carpaccio

The concept of this dish is a fruit version of an Italian meat-based appetizer (carpaccio). In place of the beef, you thinly slice pear - then you dress it in olive oil, lemon zest, Parmesan slices, salt and pepper - as you would for a carpaccio.

I prepared four individual plates of this for my family last night, using d'anjou pears of perfect firm ripeness. They sliced beautifully with my recently sharpened knives - thin 1/8 inch slices.

We liked the shavings of Parmesan with the pears. I liked the lemon, salt and pepper, too (but this was not generally agreed). But none of us felt that the olive oil helped the dish at all. In fact, some felt that it really took away from the light freshness of the pears.