O’Modern O’Henry!

By Chris Mittelstaedt

When O’Henry peaches start to appear, I think of O. Henry—the turn-of-the-century American short story writer who wrote The Gift of the Magi, a story about a young married man who sells his watch to buy his newlywed wife a beautiful set of combs for her long hair. Of course at the same time, without knowing what her husband has done, the wife cuts and sells her hair to buy her new husband a watch chain for his now sold timepiece. As the story closes, the narrator says that the two lovers are the wisest of all who give gifts. A hundred years ago, perhaps this story would have made the reader imagine that there is genuinely selfless love in the world. Today it might make dual literature and economics major wonder if that love would have ever been realized in a world of credit cards.

While sometimes it seems to me that the simple can get buried in our modern world of convenience, connection, and complexity, eating the O’Henry peach somehow strips away modernity and, if only for a moment, takes us back to a quieter time.

As you bite into the O’Henry peach, you’ll feel its selfless gift as you savor the moment of juicy sweetness dripping down your chin. Perhaps I have overly imaginative taste buds, but I look forward to this time of year when I can experience the rich and lingering hints of vanilla cream under a velvet peach flavor that only the O’Henry provides. You can recognize this fruit from its dark-red color and slightly odd shape. The peach has, for lack of a better term, a somewhat protruding peach-proboscis on one end. I recommend letting these peaches soften a day or two until they yield to slight pressure.

O’Henry peaches are, in my mind, the beginning of the unwinding of peach season across the U.S. This means that as we edge into September, the top of the peach experience will start to fall as summer fruit shifts into autumn fruit. So believe in true and selfless fruit love!

Savor the moments as we move toward the end of summer peaches, and as always, please check out our Mix pages to find out precisely what you’re eating and where it was grown (and when the O’Henry’s will hit your region). Just click the ladybug icon at fruitguys.com.

Enjoy & Be Fruitful! – Chris Mittelstaedt chiefbanana@fruitguys.com