Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
Through the Looking Glass
Although I had originally planned to visit at least one Farmers’ Market in the East Bay during my extended weekend down in San Francisco, I only managed to visit three markets in the City. The last remnants of the apricots were giving way to piles and piles of peaches and nectarines, and the first smattering of pluots and plums. The local abundance this year is a testament to the good weather and a lot of hard work. Besides some tasty heirloom tomatoes, I guess peaches, nectarines, and plums were my main focus this weekend.
As I tasted my way through the markets in light of my recent viewing of Food, Inc., I couldn’t help but think how fragile the system of small farms that sell their produce locally is in this country, be they sustainable, organic, or what have you. Totally dependent on the weather, most of these farmers work without a safety net, with many one or two bad seasons away from financial collapse. If you’ve never spent any time working on a farm - a seasonal visit to a u-pick farm really doesn’t count - it’s difficult to comprehend the hard work these people go through year after year to provide us with such a convenient abundance. All this and no guarantee that there will be anyone there to take over when they’re ready to retire, so you can understand why for most, it’s not about money - far more can be made with far less physical and mental effort doing just about anything else. About 75 or so years ago, my father and his brothers decided it would be better to trade their immigrant father’s farm for a three flat in the city and jobs in the anthracite coal mines, but that’s all part of the grand cycle of farming.
In most seasons, there are many highs and lows, but based on my sampling, this season is tasting well above average. (Of course, I am just sticking my big toe in the water here, and my comments only reflect my sampling of the mid-season peach and nectarine varieties at these markets.) Peaches and nectarines may be the trickiest of the stone fruits to grow with white flesh varieties the toughest of the lot. Known for their abundance of sweetness, white flesh nectarines and peaches offer little complexity of flavor and are often nothing but a flowery aroma and lots of sugar. I sampled them from a number of farms in every market, and surprisingly, the white flesh peaches had good flavor, much more substantial than just sweetness, which unfortunately was the case for most of the white flesh nectarines. Yellow flesh peaches tend to have more acid and more flavor, but they can have a tad too much acid. I tasted a few yellow flesh peaches that were watery and a few that were too tart, but most were very good, and they were only surpassed by the flavor and consistency of the yellow flesh nectarines I tasted.
The biggest stone fruit surprise of the trip came just as we were leaving the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. After offering me a taste of a rather average yellow peach, the young woman in the booth gave me a sample of the peach slices with flesh streaked deep red that caught my attention. The sign indicated ‘Red Queen’, a variety I had never heard of before. The skin had only a light layer of fuzz and ranged from dark rose to almost black - the backside of the peaches in the photos were black. The flavor was truly amazing, acidity and sugar in a perfect balance and a more complex, deeper peach flavor than all of the yellow flesh peaches I’ve tasted this year. I had tasted Indian Blood peaches before, 
but I don’t remember them being this intense. I seriously regret not asking questions, since I haven’t been able to find any information about the variety. I was flying home that night, so I only bought a few. I didn’t remember to taste them until later in the day, after the market closed, because I would have gone back for more and carried a bushel on the plane. Most of the red flesh peach varieties that I’ve been able to find online are late season peaches, so the Red Queen peach must be a relatively new variety. Unfortunately, I doubt if you will be finding them in your local big box SUPERmarket any time soon.
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