In his highly acclaimed 1995 book, Epitaph for a Peach, farmer David Mas Masumoto movingly wrote about trying to maintain his father's legacy: an orchard of delicious Sun Crest peaches whose fatal flaw is that they are considered "ugly" by consumers. The book's popularity helped to save the orchard and today, Masumoto plays up the unappealing color of his highly fragile fruit through an "Organic, Ugly & Fabulous" sales program he cleverly calls, "O, U Fab!" which is currently sold out for the rest of the season.
Because that's the thing about peaches. They're fleeting, perishable, attractive to pests, susceptible to flaws, and don't ripen once picked. Unlike bananas or even tomatoes, the sugars in a peach don't continue to bloom after it's taken from the tree. This goes a long way to explain why so many commercial peaches look "perfect" and taste like . . . well, they don't taste like peaches.
But once you've had a "real" peach, one grown organically and picked at the height of ripeness, you may not ever want to go back to that "perfect" peach that looks so good on the grocery store shelf. If you're in Sonoma County, our HomeFarm peaches are coming in right now, picked as they ripen, juicy and sweet. Another grower we highly recommend is Dry Creek Peach and Produce Co., which is the last devoted peach operation in Sonoma County. While prunes and other stone fruit thrive in our area, those orchards have largely been replanted to a more robust and lucrative crop: wine grapes.
Owners Gayle Okumura Sullivan and her husband Brian Sullivan bought their orchard in 2000 and, instead of ripping out trees, set about adding to them. Gayle says that they never even considered planting to grapes; the peaches were just too good. Given the perishable nature of their product, Dry Creek's peaches are hand-picked into single-layer baskets and then hand-washed. Most large commercial outfits need to pick early in order to better sort their peaches (think: washing baseballs) and ship them tightly packed. The result is that gorgeous-looking, useless-tasting round thing which we've grown all too accustomed to seeing in the produce aisle.
Dry Creek Peach and Produce Co.'s fruit stand sits right amid the orchards and is a treat to visit with the kids. It's open Wednesdays and Fridays-Sundays from noon to 5pm through mid-September. This season, make sure you eat a real peach. It's an experience that might just transform your summer.
SHED is proud to offer tree ripened peaches from both HomeFarm and Dry Creek Peach and Produce Co.