Healing with Food Article

Peaches

Accompanying recipe: Peach Plum Crisp

There’s a difference between a tree ripened peach and what’s available at the supermarket. A tender, ripened-on-the-tree peach is hand plucked, placed in a box and ready to eat. It’s available at roadside fruit stands, grower’s markets and at some green grocers who feature local produce.

The fruit’s perfume directly correlates to its ripeness and a tree ripened peach has a fragrant and warm peachy aroma. It “gives” to a gentle squeeze at its shoulder (adjacent to the stem end) and, overall, has a fresh, vibrant appearance. A fully mature peach is meltingly tender with a fleshy juiciness. How does it taste? Sweet, mildly tart and deeply satisfying.

In comparison, store-bought peaches are picked while hard, put in a bucket, dumped into huge bins and poured onto a processing line. They’re mechanically washed, de-fuzzed, dried, and sorted by size. It takes a tough, un-ripened peach to come off the conveyer belt intact. Unlike some fruits that ripen after harvest, an immature peach never ripens. It will eventually soften, but it will always be short of flavor, aroma, nutrients, sweetness and pleasure.

The term “S/he’s a peach!” is used to describe someone who’s remarkably fine. It does not evoke the image of a supermarket peach.

The peach tree originated in China and that the emperor's royal scepter was made of peach wood bespeaks its great esteem. Indeed, the Chinese associate it with immortality and considered the peach tree—rather than apple—as the Tree of Life.

From China, peach cultivation moved along caravan routes to Persia and eventually to Europe and the Americas. Originally called Persian apples in the west, the name peach comes from the Latin word for Persian.  Unlike its near relatives—plums, cherries, apricots and nectarines—peach skin is velvety.

There are hundreds of both red and golden colored peach varieties and even some more delicately perfumed and fragile (and, therefore, more expensive) white peaches. However, all peaches are either freestone or clingstone.

Break open a freestone peach and its flesh cleanly separates from the seed. The bulk of peaches on the market are these large freestones varieties.

Whereas the smaller clingstone (in comparison to a freestone), ripens earlier and is usually juicier, sweeter and softer-textured.  The flesh of a clingstone, as its name infers, clings tightly to the pit. Thus, as with a mango seed, licking and nibbling a clingstone pit efficiently gets all its goodness.

In recipes calling for uniform slices, use freestone peaches.  Whereas, in recipes requiring diced or pureed peaches, use which ever peach variety you have on hand.

With ultra soft peaches, plan on eating or processing them today.  Tree ripened peaches will store in the refrigerator for up to a week. If they’re a little short of being tenderly soft, place the fruit in a bowl and keep it at room temperature until your desired ripeness is achieved.

To preserve their integrity, wash peaches just prior to use. Peach skin, albeit it mildly fuzzy, is both flavorful and nutritious and its robust color enhances some dishes.  So don’t bother to peel peaches for thinly sliced peach toppings and garnishes as well as for purees, peach butter, sauce, juice and other dishes.

Add peach slices to yogurt or use to top ice cream…or better yet, turn them into peach ice cream or sorbet.  Use peaches as a garnish for salads or a filling for tarts, cobblers, strudels, empanadas or pies.  Peaches are great juiced, jammed, dried, canned or turned into jelly. Distill them into a brandy or liqueur or simply eat out of hand. There’s little that beats the pleasure of a ripe peach.

Peaches are a high in vitamin A and low in calories. They contain fewer calories than apples or pears, and they aid in elimination.  Peaches are high in vitamins A (especially the darker-colored peaches), C and, unlike most fruits, contain calcium.

Peaches are cooling in thermal nature.  They help to build body fluids in the case of dry coughs, and to lubricate the intestines in the case of constipation.

May you be well nourished,

Rebecca Wood