I don’t want to hijack the “mealy apples” thread – but it triggered me to ask a related question: How to do figure out which peaches to buy? A bad peach isn’t mealy or otherwise unappealing in texture – but it doesn’t taste like anything much in particular.
A good peach, however, is one of the most delicious things imaginable.
The ones I bought the other day were bad peaches – blah.
I don’t think it’s about buying them unripe and letting them finish up in the bowl on the kitchen table, because I’ve had some excellent peaches that were still a little hard when I bought them. Is there some particular variety I should be looking for?
I go by smell. I don’t think I’ve ever had a peach that smelled good and tasted bad, or vice versa.
Usually, I go to our local giant farmer’s market once a year. Peaches in the height of season sell for about $1.80/lb in the tourist area up front–but if you drive around to the back, you find where the farmers sell directly to grocery stores and restaurants. A giant basket of peaches (30 pounds or so) costs $11-15. I’ll go from vendor to vendor asking questions and checking out their wares. Some of them will offer a sample, a thin slice from a sample peach, and I’ll invariably buy from one of those vendors. Then I spend a couple of days blanching, skinning, slicing, and freezing the peaches as they ripen. It’s a summer milestone.
Edit: as Zsofia said, I’m guessing buying local is a good idea, but it probably won’t work so well for you. Our farmers drive up from South Carolina, which is an awesome peach-growing area.
Damned if I know, but there is a book about it How to Pick a Peach. I heard this guy talk on npr & thought this would be an interesting book. Maybe I’ll buy it now.
I just bought a dozen of them and the quality was all over the map. They all had the same firmness when I bought them but some where completely inedible and some were 50/50.
After reading up I see that they should be purchased in a ripened state and consumed soon thereafter. A ripened state consists of a good smell and slight give when pressed. Either they were picked too soon or suffered some kind of shipping damage (freezing?).
I’ll second smelling them. It works for a number of other fruits and vegetables, too. I just watched through a season of The Two Fat Ladies and Jennifer told us to smell tomatoes. “If it doesn’t smell it won’t taste”, she said.
My grandmother always smelled peaches and pears. She was typically successful. She was also an expert thumper of melons.
Maybe not in the city proper, but I’ll bet there are plenty grown in the surrounding countryside. I know some good places on the Jersey side of the river where you can pick your own, and I would be shocked if there weren’t a bunch of places just outside of Philly too. Peaches are in season right now, and at the place we like to go, you can pick your own for 75 cents a pound. They have several varieties, including white peaches and nectarines, and it’s all excellent fruit.
Yep, smell em. They should feel kinda heavy too. The vendors at the farmers market usually will let you sample them. I had to laugh at the grocery store when they advertised their crispy peaches.
not sure if it’s a unique variety or just intentionally under-ripened, but they were selling “crispy” peaches at the farmer’s market this past weekend, too
I have bought some less-than-great peaches at South Jersey farmstands over the years.
Re: Crispy peaches: I have a friend who prefer them unripe. He and his wife have to split all peach purchases and put them in separate bowls, since otherwise he finishes them before they’re ready for anyone but a crazy person to eat.
I grew up on supermarket peaches, so perversely I prefer them crispy. The ideal peach for me is a freestone variety that I can cut along the seam and then twist to separate into two halves. I then pull the stone out of one of them and then slice again to get four quarters. (And did I mention that I like to eat them with salt?)
Me too - that’s why I started going to a farm where I can personally hand-pick them straight off the tree. It can only be done in season, and is very inconvenient compared to the supermarket or farmstand, but I’ve never been disappointed. We just go as a family and make an outing of it. Then we do it again in the fall to get our apples.
As far as selecting good ones in the store, I usually just give them a gentle squeeze - just enough to tell if there’s a little “give.” That works pretty well for getting a peach with the right texture, but flavor is a different matter. The smell test people have mentioned sounds like a good way to go on that front.
Good luck in your quest to improve your peach selection skills!
My wife calls me a fruit snob, because I don’t often eat fruit: most of what we can get at the grocery store is really unappetizing to me. If fruit isn’t exactly ripe and flavorful, I find it nearly inedible. I’m not that way with other food, and my wife will eat pretty much any fruit, would probably live off of fruit if she could.
Peaches that are crunchy are revolting, IMO. Ideally a peach should be annoyingly juicy, so that eating it gets you sticky .
(One of the nice byproducts of putting up 30 lbs of peaches is the nectar that forms at the bottom of the bowl. It’s pretty tasty mixed with rum, but honestly it’s best drunk straight. Peachy goodness!)