I want a damn peach now

[annecros]

I went to a "Farmer's Market" and they had "white peaches" from California. I'm in Florida.

I am sure that they are wonderful in California.

My son stopped by a truck vendor advertising Georgia Peaches, said "Isn't it a little early in the season for Georgia Peaches?" He said no, "We are two weeks in."

Son got a free sample, and if he didn't know better he would have probably enjoyed it.

He didn't buy.

Daughter was distracted by the peach aroma in Publix. She checked them out, they weren't even fuzzy.

Is a decent peach too much to ask for?

[snowangel]

Is a decent peach too much to ask for?

←

Here in MN, we wait until August for peaches from Colorado. Seems they have less time to travel.

But, another question: is a decent tomato too much to ask for?

Me thinks that so much of this stuff is bred or picked to be tossed from a long ways away into a trailer. Not meant for eating, just meant to be shipped and to try and fool the shopper.

[Fat Guy]

You just need to be willing to pay several dollars a peach to have them shipped FedEx. At Per Se restaurant in New York the other day I had a peach from Masumoto Family Farm in California that was the best peach I've had, and I've had some good ones. A few years ago I was visiting a friend upstate and he had found a mail-order source for some pretty amazing peaches from, I think, Michigan. Alain Ducasse favors the ones from Ohio. Although, presumably, those Midwestern peaches come in later on. The California ones, you don't have to wait for.

[annecros]

You just need to be willing to pay several dollars a peach to have them shipped FedEx. At Per Se restaurant in New York the other day I had a peach from Masumoto Family Farm in California that was the best peach I've had, and I've had some good ones. A few years ago I was visiting a friend upstate and he had found a mail-order source for some pretty amazing peaches from, I think, Michigan. Alain Ducasse favors the ones from Ohio. Although, presumably, those Midwestern peaches come in later on. The California ones, you don't have to wait for.

←

I know. But hubby won't have it. Waste of money, blah blah.

I will eat a peach this year. Literally and not metaphorically.

Maybe he will give?

[jsmeeker]

bought some "Texas" peaches at a nearby Whole Foods in Dallas yesterday. had one today. Kind of tart. I really don't keep up with the details of the growing season as much as i should. Not sure where in Texas it was from, though. Typically, the ones from East Texas are the prized one.

I want some peaches to make a fresh peach tart (no baking of fruit) and also for eating plain and for use in a bourbon old fahsioned.

[docsconz]

Late summer we get peaches from N.J., Pennsylvania and N.Y. that are generally quite good. For us to get great peaches now, we generally have to pay an arm and a leg for shipping on top of already pricey per peach costs. I am partial to Frog Hollow peaches, though clearly, as Steven's post attests, they are out there.

My friend, Rocco Verrigni, a chef/professor, who is currently in Italy sent me this from there for My blog:

How You Know When a Peach is a Peach

While sitting in a small park in Parma on a very hot late spring afternoon (88°), I discovered the following about how you know when a peach is a peach.

A peach is a peach:

    *  When you can close your eyes, smell what you are holding and immediately identify it as a peach

    * When you can, without effort, split the peach exactly in half by just twisting as if you were        opening a bottle or container, without mutilating the fruit

    * When the seed pulls out like it were in butter

    * When you open it and you see the juice as it sprays into the air and falls silently to the ground

    * When, while eating it, the juice oozes from the corners of your mouth and pools onto the bag you are holding on your lap

    * When the pooled juice can be drunk from the bag as if drinking a shot glass of peach juice

    * When an hour later, you are still enjoying the peach because the sweet aroma of it is still radiating from your hands

    * When you know that this is the best peach you have ever had until you have another like it

Now, this is when a peach is a peach!

[Pierogi]

Ohhhhhhhh Lord.........

Even in sunny Southern California, the supposed fruit and vegetable basket of the world, it is damn near impossible to find a peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, strawberry or tomato that tastes like what it claims to be.

Over the weekend I was seduced by the fragrance of stone fruit in one of the local chain groceries.......even though I knew in my gut it was too early for them, I stopped and looked anyway. Each one, you could've played Major League Baseball with. Not softball, not T-ball, not slo-pitch. I'm talkin' the Dodgers and the Red Sox could've used these bad boys for batting practice.

I have to assume they were spraying in the bottled fragrance in the area to entice unsuspecting saps to buy these fruit-resembling rocks.

I don't know where the good fruit goes. It's something I've wondered about for years. SOMEONE must be getting it, SOMEWHERE. I can't even find it at the local Farmers' Markets. It's the same rot as in the grocery stores........cottony strawberries, hard flavorless peaches, mealy tomatoes, I don't get it.

Well actually I kinda do. Yes, all that's being sold apparently, even in those "oh-so-politically-correct-and-locally-sourced-and-foodie-blessed" stores and Farmers' Markets are the cultivars which have been bred for sturdiness in transport, not for taste.

It sucks. Tomatoes and strawberries I probably could grow myself. But I don't have the room for a stone fruit orchard, nor the energy or strength to tend it. I dont' think its too much to ask to be able to buy them without too much effort, OR too much expense.

And don't get me started about how the grocery clerks man-handle the specimens you DO happen to find at the Mega Mart which could possible suffice. Nectarines don't do so well with a box of laundry detergent sitting on them......

[prasantrin]

Come to Japan. It's a wee bit before prime season, so they're super expensive, but usually worth what you pay for them.

[Busboy]

I went to a "Farmer's Market" and they had "white peaches" from California. I'm in Florida.

I am sure that they are wonderful in California.

My son stopped by a truck vendor advertising Georgia Peaches, said "Isn't it a little early in the season for Georgia Peaches?" He said no, "We are two weeks in."

Son got a free sample, and if he didn't know better he would have probably enjoyed it.

He didn't buy.

Daughter was distracted by the peach aroma in Publix. She checked them out, they weren't even fuzzy.

Is a decent peach too much to ask for?

←

Can you ever get good peaches in Florida? Up here (DC), even in peach country, even in season, the grocery stores and even Whole Foods sell substandard specimens. It's only the at the farmers markets that you find stone fruit that tatstes like stone fruit (and even then you have to be choosey). But, I seem to recall that Florida is too far south to have local peaches or nectarines - do they get trucked in from North Georgia?

I feel your pain. I spent two years in Denver and, while things might have changed, it was almost impossible to get a decent tomato at that time. The high-altitude sun was apparently too much for the delicate things. Two years without a tomato season -- it sucked. It's not summer until you can get the good peaches and tomatoes. Hope some peaches get to you before too long.

Edited June 23, 2009 by Busboy (log)

[annecros]

Oh supermarket tomatoes are an abomination. I just never buy them, but I can grow them here and my season is unusually long (about November through March).

We can't grow any stone fruit here at all. We don't have the chill hours. I think there are a couple of hot weather varieties out there, but they seem to be of the same quality as supermarket.

Usually we get a truck farmer or three by the side of the road who drives a load down from the Fort Valley area of Georgia. I haven't seen them the last couple of summers.

Maybe I can talk my stepdaughter into bringing a box down when she comes in July.

I ate a red plum last night. It was completely inadequate and didn't help.

[Reignking]

Hmm, I've had Florida peaches in Publix in Atlanta for weeks, but I haven't bought any...because I prefer those from the real peach state -- South Carolina.

[PopsicleToze]

You're in luck! Peaches from Ruston, Louisiana are famous in these parts, and they're in season right now. In fact, the Peach Festival is this weekend!

http://www.louisianapeachfestival.org/

The Squire Creek Louisiana Peach Festival is a family-oriented event produced by the Ruston-Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, and held each year the fourth weekend of June.

We're planning to go to the festival Sunday afternoon. If you want -- PM me your address and I'll ship you a case of the little jewels. They're so good they'll make you blush!

Rhonda

[HungryC]

Rhonda beat me to it: Ruston, LA peaches are delicious, no doubt....the season is fleeting. I'm also getting excellent Chilton County (GA) peaches at the farmers' market right now. I had a peach for breakfast every day last week; movin' on to blueberries next.

[annecros]

Oh, oh, oh!

I think it's been warm enough in Louisiana to bring them into season, as well.

Mmmm, warm and juicy peaches.

[jgm]

Late summer we get peaches from N.J., Pennsylvania and N.Y. that are generally quite good. For us to get great peaches now, we generally have to pay an arm and a leg for shipping on top of already pricey per peach costs. I am partial to Frog Hollow peaches, though clearly, as Steven's post attests, they are out there.

My friend, Rocco Verrigni, a chef/professor, who is currently in Italy sent me this from there for My blog:

How You Know When a Peach is a Peach

While sitting in a small park in Parma on a very hot late spring afternoon (88°), I discovered the following about how you know when a peach is a peach.

A peach is a peach:

    *  When you can close your eyes, smell what you are holding and immediately identify it as a peach

    * When you can, without effort, split the peach exactly in half by just twisting as if you were         opening a bottle or container, without mutilating the fruit

    * When the seed pulls out like it were in butter

    * When you open it and you see the juice as it sprays into the air and falls silently to the ground

    * When, while eating it, the juice oozes from the corners of your mouth and pools onto the bag you are holding on your lap

    * When the pooled juice can be drunk from the bag as if drinking a shot glass of peach juice

    * When an hour later, you are still enjoying the peach because the sweet aroma of it is still radiating from your hands

    * When you know that this is the best peach you have ever had until you have another like it

Now, this is when a peach is a peach!

←

PEACH PORN!!!!

[lancastermike]

Within a half mile of my house is a lovely peach orchard. But it is a while yet for them to be ready. The best peach I have ever had came from Currituck Co North Carolina. Our Lancaster County peaches are good, but not that good.

Tomatoes are in my garden and they are not ready yet. There are tomatoes for sale down in the road that are grown near the Susquehanna River. The micro climate there is perfect for tomatoes, but the best are not yet in.

As a special note to Susan, local growers are promising us sweet corn next week. It was started under plastic and is now almost ready.

And the sweet cherries are on the trees now for the picking and the sour cherries, or pie cherries as my Mom would call them are going to be ready to pick this weekend.

I love apricots, and my grower friend tells me soon and they should be good.

[heidih]

I am in Southern California and I tasted some of the samples at my Farmers Market on Sunday. Maybe I am just spoiled. They smell good, texture is o.k., but the depth of flavor is missing. I had one peach last year from a tree that probably mimics the Masumoto method of witholding water at a certain point. It was truly fuzzy, the skin was a little chewy, but the juice squirted onto my shirt and the aroma and flavor hit me with intense memories as I bit in. That tree is not ready yet and may not have gotten enough water this year (drought- it is on public land). Sadly my father's trees that created the intense memories are gone due to old age; both his and the trees'. He gave me the last of his plums for this season yesterday and the house is filled with their aroma. I am at the point where if it does not measure up I would rather not eat it. I woman up the street told me her nectarines are abundant and I was welcome but I thinks she overwaters.....

[divalasvegas]

Can you ever get good peaches in Florida?  Up here (DC), even in peach country, even in season, the grocery stores and even Whole Foods sell substandard specimens.  It's only the at the farmers markets that you find stone fruit  that tatstes like stone fruit (and even then you have to be choosey).  But, I seem to recall that Florida is too far south to have local peaches or nectarines - do they get trucked in from North Georgia?

←

Gee Busboy sorry to hear that you haven't had a wonderful peach lately. I've actually not been able to find a bad peach and I'm not going to Whole Paycheck or any farmers's markets, I'm getting them from Safeway and Harris Teeter right here in Northern Virginia. The signs say that they're local so maybe Virginia is peach central right now? The ones I currently have are fragrant, juicy and sweet like the aforementioned peach porn. I've got a couple of them chilling in the fridge and well after this conversation I gotta have one NOW!

Edited June 23, 2009 by divalasvegas (log)

[annecros]

Eating a Ruston, LA peach right now.

I'll go change my shirt and wash my face later.

Best peach I have ever eaten.

[Sony]

Eating a Ruston, LA peach right now.

I'll go change my shirt and wash my face later.

Best peach I have ever eaten.

←

Hooray, it's finally time for the damn peaches (now)!

Well, not for me- I'm in upstate NY. But the strawberries and early cherries are enough to tide me over, I think. I hope that the rainy season hasn't negotiated the quality of this year's crop.

Unlike most other fruits, I tend to prefer peaches room temperature....seems to let more complex flavors shine through, IMHO.

[HungryC]

Eating a Ruston, LA peach right now.

I'll go change my shirt and wash my face later.

Best peach I have ever eaten.

←

Yes, indeed. Glad to know that LA peaches made it to FLA: the Ruston varieties don't ship well, so they're hard to find outside our immediate area. I have a Ruston peach in my lunch bag today! Lookign forward to it.

[Stephanie Brim]

I'm waiting on the Missouri peaches myself. I did have a very good couple of white California ones recently, but they're a poor substitute for my favorites.

[chezcherie]

so, risking charges of heresy, i say with pride that today i stood over the sink, double-paper-toweled, to eat my second AMAZING peach of the still-young season...from costco.

costco, via reedley, CA.

i did not have one reasonably adequate peach all summer last year. and so far i've had two mind-blowing nectarines (my fav of all fruits) and these two peaches, all purchased not at my well-attended farmer's mkts., but from costco.

triple-napkin stone fruits.

the season is so promising. i am thrilled beyond measure. there was a varietal indicator of both varietals on the boxes, but i don't have them to hand.

so, so good.

[Pierogi]

No risk of heresy charges from me, I say you takes 'em where you can find 'em ! And then take some more !!

[Shelby]

Is a decent peach too much to ask for?

←

Here in MN, we wait until August for peaches from Colorado. Seems they have less time to travel.

But, another question: is a decent tomato too much to ask for?

Me thinks that so much of this stuff is bred or picked to be tossed from a long ways away into a trailer. Not meant for eating, just meant to be shipped and to try and fool the shopper.

←

Ain't that the truth. I have never ever bought a tomato that had even HALF the flavor of home grown.

Aren't Colorado peaches SO good???!!! I'm from there, and when I visit mom, I bring home a huge box of 'em.