LIFE'S A PEACH
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| The summer's first crop of peaches at the Peach Tree Orchards fruit stand in York, SC |
Craving
fresh peaches, we drove to the Peach Tree Orchards fruit stand on the Filbert
Highway between Clover and York. This
was the last day of May, so I feared we’d be too early, but our timing was
perfect. As owner Ben Smith explained to
us, the Flavorich peaches set out in baskets to be sold that day constituted the first
crop of the season. They had been picked
in his fields that morning.
Given my
love of food, it’s not surprising that one of my earliest memories is salvaged
from a fruit-picking expedition I participated in when I was barely old enough
to walk. This is a memory of toddling
after my older sisters through a blackberry thicket. I was barefoot, a rare occasion of freedom, I
believe, rather than neglect, and it was heavenly to feel the dust on my feet
and the summer sun baking my head. Someone
encouraged me to pluck a berry from the cane and eat it. That first
gustatory experience of a sun-ripened blackberry coated lightly with dust
dissolving into sweet, dark bliss on my tongue was so profoundly pleasurable
that no meal eaten since has rivaled it.
Eating a
field-ripened South Carolina peach comes pretty close. I keep the Peach Tree’s crop calendar posted
on my refrigerator, and in the heart of the season my husband and I make the
trip there as often as we can to buy half-bushels of the cling varieties,
Flavorich and Ruby Prince (which ripen in June), the July-ripening freestones
like Contender and Loring, and the August beauties that are some of my
favorites, such as Flame Prince, Big Red, and Monroe. Certain connoisseurs prefer the subtler
flavor of white varieties like White Lady and Early Belle, but when I eat a
fresh peach I’m not looking for ‘subtle.’
I want that same, sensory-overload explosion of flavor and sticky juice
I experienced as a fruit-picking toddler, and when it comes to the yellow
peaches of York County, the greedy child in me is usually satisfied.
Peaches can
be easily frozen by peeling and slicing them, placing the slices in a single
layer on a cookie sheet and putting the sheet in the freezer briefly. Once the slices are frozen, they can be
removed from the sheet and returned to the freezer in a labeled plastic freezer
bag; this way you’ll be able to remove the slices as you need them, rather than
having to defrost the whole bag. They’re
much better used fresh, of course, and whenever we have company coming
mid-summer I bake a fruit crisp pairing ripe peach slices with blackberries,
covered with an oatmeal-butter-brown sugar crust and served warm with vanilla
ice cream. That dish is perfect for the
two-year-olds in everyone.
When shopping at The Peach Stand I often pick up a six-pack of the locally made Blenheim
ginger ale my husband’s so fond of. (Warning:
the bottles with the red caps are ‘extra hot’ – if you chug one, stand clear of
innocent bystanders who may be harmed by the steam blasting out your ears.) Meanwhile, he gets in line at the ice cream
counter for the peach milkshake and buys a cone for me. Then we carry our treasures across Philbeck
Road, where peach fields stretch away to the horizon, and settle at one of the
picnic tables sheltered by a giant willow oak.
The oak’s shade is essential by August, but whenever one is eating a
fresh peach (or peach ice cream) the heat feels like a necessary part of the
experience.
I think
summer memories are durable because they involve so many of life’s simplest
pleasures. Those delights don’t go out of fashion, no matter if you’re two
years old or ninety-two. I hope to make it to the latter age clutching a ripe peach in my hand.
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| The Peachoid, a water tower in Gaffney SC, is an homage to the region's major agricultural export |
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