My Mom has a FABULOUS pear soup recipe that I want to make for Thanksgiving, but it calls for a specific kind of pear: Comice pears. (The soup doesn't work with run of the mill pears as the Comice variety have a different cooking quality.) Does anyone know where I might be able to get these pears? I can't seem to find them in the Coop or Migros...and I'm not surprised - my Mom can not normally find them in the larger grocery stores and has to hunt for them in the smaller, mom-and-pop middle eastern or asian stores. I have no idea where to start my search here. Any and all help is greatly appreciated! DANKE!

Comice are often available in the regular supermarkets. Particularly in Coop as part of the Ripe and Ready to Eat selection. I have certainly bought them here. I bought some this weekend from Leclerc supermarket in St Louis but seeing your location, I don't think this is of much use to you.

Do you know what particular properties these pears have which make them particularly suitable for this recipe? Is it because they are considered very sweet? If there are any other redish skinned pear varities on sale, I think they would substitute well. I would suggest Forelle .. these may be a little less sweet but not so noticeably that it would affect your recipe (which incidently sounds rather lovely and very intriguing).