Readers reply: Is ‘ripen at home’ fruit the supermarkets’ idea of a joke?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts This week’s question: Why does silence feel so horribly awkward? I can’t be the only person who has become deeply distrustful of “ripen at home” fruit and veg. I’ve tried many varieties – peaches, pears, avocados – but either they stay rock-hard for weeks or they turn overnight and I find them oozing in the fruit bowl. When and how did we start having to pay extra for produce we can actually eat? Graeme McIntyre, Edinburgh Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com. We call this fruit “rot in a basket”. Nectarines and peaches seem to be the worst offenders. Much better to buy better quality, which is already ripe, and consume quickly. On a tangent, I found an apple at the back of the fridge this week which had been there since January. Still quite firm. What do they do to them? BaronOchs We run into this problem with peaches, which if picked ripe would be terribly bruised by the time they got to the store, so they are usually like orange cannon balls. We put them in a brown paper bag (kept for