Peaches
Peaches should be so soft that you have to eat them outside, over the sink, or over the garbage can.
I consider myself very lucky to have grown up surrounded by peach orchards where, each summer, we would buy flats and flats of peaches which would tantilize us with their sent as we drove the 3.4 miles home. Upon entering the house with our golden goodness, the scent drew the crowds. My brothers' friends (always up for any food) flocked. My dad grabbed one and ate it without even washing it first. My grandpa likes his cut in half and eaten over a bowl. Mom prefers them cut up in her cereal. I like them anyway. Each summer, while they were in season, I practically lived off of the fuzzy fruit heaven of peaches.
When I moved to Washington, then Santa Cruz, then Davis, then Cincinnti, I could never find peaches like those I had at home. I would wait patiently all year. I could understand that those inferior middle of winter peaches couldn't compete, but surely by the time summer rolled around and I knew the trees at home were ladden with sweet soft peaches they could get them to my part of the world, wherever that happened to be that year.
I ultimately ended up blaming in on Ohio. Even in the best grocery stores priding themselves on their superior produce, their peaches could not compete with those I'd had as a kid. Now you may think that this is an exageratted childhood recolection, like memories of how much fun Chuck-E-Cheese is until you visit it again as an adult, but I assure you it is not. For I have been back to the homeland as an adult and the peaches are as good, or better, than ever.
This lack of good peaches anywhere else does explain a few things I wondered about as a kid, however. For instance, when I was enjoying my peach with the juice dripping down my chin and the hose and creek nearby to wash off the sticky sweetness, I wondered, "How is it possible that everyone in the country, if not the world, buy up and eat all the peaches available to them the second they ripen?" Now I know. When the peaches in grocery stores are the consistancy of apples, they are not peaches the way they are meant to be. They are not peaches at their best. They are simply the subpar "shippable" or "marketable" type of fruit--the poor relation to the peaches I knew growing up.
The second conundrum regarding peaches involved an annual pilgrimage made by two of our very close family friends who lived about five hours away. Every year, they would come to visit and plan their trip around when the best peaches were ripe. For me, living in my own Garden of Eden, it seemed like a lot of trouble to go to just for a few peaches that I (erronously) thought could be obtained at any decent grocery store. My years and my travels have indeed shown me the error of my ways. Peaches like those I had as a child are precious; they are worth the trek; in fact, they are worth more than that.
As of this instant, I have a flat of peaches sitting in my refridgerator. They looked fine; they are...fine. They are the the golden red that peaches should be, but even from looking at them you can start to guess that they will not be the same. They are simply too round and firm looking. The peaches I want are slighly dimpled where they have been tenderly touched by the picker and the boxer. They are soft to the touch, and not just because of the short fuzz, but also because of the tender give of the flesh under the thin skin.
The peaches I have in my refridgerator are not like this. They have a greenish tinge when I turn them over and they are as hard as apples, or baseballs. I ate one anyway, hoping the poor cousin would at least bring back the memory of my childhood peach princes. If I cut them into thin enough slices (that is the other thing...real peaches should barely be able to be cut in half, and slicing them just makes a juicy mess)--if I cut these into thin enough slices, though, they are soft enough and recall a sweeter past. I have set one out on the window sill in the hopes that it will somehow mature into it's best self.
It is not the peaches' fault after all. They have been torn from their orchard homes much too early. Long before they could coax the sweetness out of the ground and into their flesh. Long before they became too tempting for the birds and insects. And long before they have reached their full potential.
"Let them ripen!" I say. All the time knowing that if they were really allowed to ripen, they would never reach me at all. They would be soft soggy, perhaps even moldy, messes by the time they were thousands of miles away from their home tree. Some things must just be enjoyed where they belong. You can take the peach out of the orchard, but it looses something in the transition.
I consider myself very lucky to have grown up surrounded by peach orchards where, each summer, we would buy flats and flats of peaches which would tantilize us with their sent as we drove the 3.4 miles home. Upon entering the house with our golden goodness, the scent drew the crowds. My brothers' friends (always up for any food) flocked. My dad grabbed one and ate it without even washing it first. My grandpa likes his cut in half and eaten over a bowl. Mom prefers them cut up in her cereal. I like them anyway. Each summer, while they were in season, I practically lived off of the fuzzy fruit heaven of peaches.
When I moved to Washington, then Santa Cruz, then Davis, then Cincinnti, I could never find peaches like those I had at home. I would wait patiently all year. I could understand that those inferior middle of winter peaches couldn't compete, but surely by the time summer rolled around and I knew the trees at home were ladden with sweet soft peaches they could get them to my part of the world, wherever that happened to be that year.
I ultimately ended up blaming in on Ohio. Even in the best grocery stores priding themselves on their superior produce, their peaches could not compete with those I'd had as a kid. Now you may think that this is an exageratted childhood recolection, like memories of how much fun Chuck-E-Cheese is until you visit it again as an adult, but I assure you it is not. For I have been back to the homeland as an adult and the peaches are as good, or better, than ever.
This lack of good peaches anywhere else does explain a few things I wondered about as a kid, however. For instance, when I was enjoying my peach with the juice dripping down my chin and the hose and creek nearby to wash off the sticky sweetness, I wondered, "How is it possible that everyone in the country, if not the world, buy up and eat all the peaches available to them the second they ripen?" Now I know. When the peaches in grocery stores are the consistancy of apples, they are not peaches the way they are meant to be. They are not peaches at their best. They are simply the subpar "shippable" or "marketable" type of fruit--the poor relation to the peaches I knew growing up.
The second conundrum regarding peaches involved an annual pilgrimage made by two of our very close family friends who lived about five hours away. Every year, they would come to visit and plan their trip around when the best peaches were ripe. For me, living in my own Garden of Eden, it seemed like a lot of trouble to go to just for a few peaches that I (erronously) thought could be obtained at any decent grocery store. My years and my travels have indeed shown me the error of my ways. Peaches like those I had as a child are precious; they are worth the trek; in fact, they are worth more than that.
As of this instant, I have a flat of peaches sitting in my refridgerator. They looked fine; they are...fine. They are the the golden red that peaches should be, but even from looking at them you can start to guess that they will not be the same. They are simply too round and firm looking. The peaches I want are slighly dimpled where they have been tenderly touched by the picker and the boxer. They are soft to the touch, and not just because of the short fuzz, but also because of the tender give of the flesh under the thin skin.
The peaches I have in my refridgerator are not like this. They have a greenish tinge when I turn them over and they are as hard as apples, or baseballs. I ate one anyway, hoping the poor cousin would at least bring back the memory of my childhood peach princes. If I cut them into thin enough slices (that is the other thing...real peaches should barely be able to be cut in half, and slicing them just makes a juicy mess)--if I cut these into thin enough slices, though, they are soft enough and recall a sweeter past. I have set one out on the window sill in the hopes that it will somehow mature into it's best self.
It is not the peaches' fault after all. They have been torn from their orchard homes much too early. Long before they could coax the sweetness out of the ground and into their flesh. Long before they became too tempting for the birds and insects. And long before they have reached their full potential.
"Let them ripen!" I say. All the time knowing that if they were really allowed to ripen, they would never reach me at all. They would be soft soggy, perhaps even moldy, messes by the time they were thousands of miles away from their home tree. Some things must just be enjoyed where they belong. You can take the peach out of the orchard, but it looses something in the transition.
posted by S. at 10:08 PM
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