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A Rose is a Rose… Unless It’s a Peach
When summer hits, there are few things that satisfy as much as a juicy bite into a crisp, sweet piece of fruit. It is all the more satisfying in the peak of its season. And as June shyly raises her head, the sweetest season for peaches begins.
The peach, also known as the Prunus Persica, actually originated in China approximately 4,000 years ago. Belonging to the same family as the rose, the first few generations of peach were far from the fist-sized, abundant fruit we call the peach today. More pit than fruit, fuzzy, small and tart, these little gems were associated with magic, luck and immortality in Chinese folklore and are regarded as a honored birthday gift even to this day.
Traders along the Silk Road brought versions of the primitive peach to Arabian gardens, and the crop spread far from its homeland into the Western world by route of India and Persia, where it thrived and was cultivated before entering Europe. On his second and third trips to the New World, Christopher Columbus brought the crop to New Augustine, Florida, where it grew and spread throughout the entire country.
The fruit became divided into clingstones and freestones, depending on whether the flesh stuck to the stone or not; both can have either white or yellow flesh. White fleshed peaches (only making up about 15% of the total peach crop in California) typically are firmer and very sweet with a small amount of acidity, while yellow-fleshed peaches typically have an acidic tang complemented by sweetness, though this can vary, with about 200 different varieties of peach worldwide today.
In North America, although regarded as the Peach State, Georgia actually trails both California and South Carolina in production of this fruit. California produces about 65% of the nation’s annual crop (and nearly 100% of the clingstone varieties). For this reason, California peaches are arguably the best of the lot.
Eat fresh, eat local, always!
