Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?

It's the time of summer when I start thinking of my grandmother's cooking, especially her peach cobbler.  I can make peach cobbler on my own, of course--the way I like it, with more pastry and a better quality ice cream.  But I'm not crazy about getting the peaches off the stone.

Still, last week when I was in the Fresh Market, and I thought, let me get some peaches.  I saw the boxes that the peaches were in--they were from a farm in South Carolina, which I thought was a good sign.

In the brief moment before I picked up a peach, I thought about those South Carolina peach farms, the gnarled trees so bare in the winter, full of blooms in the spring, heavy with fruit in the summer.  I thought of road side stands, where I first learned the difference between a peck and a bushel.

And then I picked up the peach to bring it to my nose.  Oh dear.  What a hard rock of a peach.  Sadness.  I put it back and decided to bake something else. 

A Facebook friend suggested I try frozen peaches--that might be a good solution. 

I know that our modern agricultural practices have helped keep food prices low and helped alleviate many of the problems of hunger that past generations have faced.  I'm willing to sacrifice perfect produce if it means that more can be fed.

But I'm still sad for some of the losses. 

And then there's the larger issue of food and hunger in less developed countries.  But that's a topic for another day.