"Vegetables of Interest"

Rio Oso Gem Peach

Rio Oso Gem Peach

(Prunus persica)

There is an old-as-dirt punch line that farmers use when confronted with the question of “What’s your favorite vegetable or crop?”  The farmer must use the correct timing for best effect (long pause, thoughtful furrowing of the brow) but the classic deadpan reply is “The one I’m harvesting now.”  So it is that in early September that my favorite eating peach is the Rio Oso Gem. 

Rio Oso Gem was developed in the 1920’s as a large, late-harvest, all-purpose peach.  It is named in honor of the very small town of Rio Oso, California in the Sierra foothills.  Today this peach has little presence in the commercial market.  The trees are small which is an advantage to a backyard grower but its overall yield is lower than that of current cultivars.  And it has a tendency for fruit drop.  Finally, some say that the flesh of a Rio Oso is coarser than that of more popular peaches.  There is some truth to that but its nothing that a dab of ice cream won’t fix.

The Rio Oso Gem peach is listed on the Slow Food Ark of Taste and, as advertised, its fruit ripen at the tail end of peach season here in California.

My crop of Rio Oso Gem peaches is from a single five-year-old tree, grown organically in the Valley of the Moon.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Sun Crest Peaches

Sun Crest Peaches   

(Prunis persica)

There has always been something a bit too sensuous about a peach to keep its admirers on the straight and narrow.  Sooner or later their relationship to a peach becomes physical and their admiring smiles tighten into a leer.  Even the splendid and lyrical Epitaph for a Peach by David Masamoto gets slightly creepy as he describes eating a Sun Crest peach: “Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches. When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water ...your mouth waters in anticipation. You lean over the sink to make sure you don't drip on yourself. Then you sink your teeth into the flesh, and the juice trickles down your cheeks and dangles on your chin.”

I can speculate at some length about why peaches, in particular, have this effect.  I can point out its curvaceous outline; its lip-like groove; its terry-cloth fuzzy robe and its enchanting perfume as charms.  But I think that the Siren-like appeal of a ripe peach is its flesh.  Unlike other fruits peaches yield to the most tender of bites but a knife can make crisp-looking slices.  And once in the mouth a ripe peach explodes into a sweet elixir while retaining just enough texture that it’s nobody’s snow cone.  That peachy quality of yielding, juice-filled flesh is called “melting flesh” by botanists and while the science explaining this characteristic isn’t sensual it is sexy.

Peaches are a climacteric fruit, which means that the ripening process is triggered and driven by a plant hormone called ethylene.  Peaches make this hormone in the fruits themselves at a point in their development.  Ethylene is a gas and it permeates the peach tissues triggering a larger number of events that are collectively observed as the ripening process.  For example, ethylene speeds the destruction of green-colored chlorophyll in peach skin allowing the yellow-colored carotenoid pigments to shine  (if it’s a yellow peach).  Ethylene also pushes along the production of sugars and the elimination of acids which both contribute to the sensory perception of “sweetness.”  Ethylene plays a role, too, in softening the fruit’s flesh through an enzyme reaction that breaks down the cell wall structure in the fruit.  As this enzyme reaction gains speed the peach’s flesh softens or “melts” suffusing the flesh with aromatic juices. 

Recently plant geneticists have identified the peach gene responsible for the melting flesh characteristic and have given it the dubious abbreviation, “MF.”  It turns out that some peach varieties have an absent or silent MF gene and thus remain firm despite being ripe.  And there are probably variants of the MF gene to explain why some peaches “melt” more than others.  To my knowledge the Sun Crest MF gene has not been sequenced but when scientists do I suggest that they lean over a sink.

These Sun Crest peaches were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon, Sonoma County.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Elberta Peaches

Elberta Peaches

 

(Prunis persica)

The Elberta peach is a late-season, free-stone variety developed by Samuel Rumph in the 1870s. Rumph was an amateur botanist and nurseryman who triumphed in his creation of a tree that was hardy, highly productive and offered large, lushly sweet peaches. His contributions to the peach world did not end there. He was also an inventor of a number of peach-related devices and packages. He designed the first mortise jointed wood boxes that became the iconic "peach crate" and he developed the first systems of refrigeration for peaches traveling by railcar. Both accomplishments fueled the fresh peach market in the late 1880s and enabled Southern farmers to have access to Northern markets, particularly New York. Within his lifetime the Elberta peach population reached six million trees, sealing the fate of the "Peach State." Always a thoughtful and kind man Rumph gave away his inventions and graciously named his peach "Elberta" in honor of his wife who shares a middle name with this lovely peach.

 

These peaches were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon.

 

C Lindquist

Vegetables of Interest, 2008

Satsuma Dried Plum/Prune

Satsuma Dried Plum/Prune

(Prunis salicina)



The classic French prune is a dried Ente Plum.   In the United States the Ente is called the d’Agen Plum in honor of the area in France from which it was exported.  Sadly my Ente Plum tree succumbed to some manner of blight and I needed a ‘Plan B’ for making prunes.  Here are Satsuma dried plums. 

Satsuma was developed by Luther Burbank in the early 1900s at his farm in Santa Rosa.  Burbank’s multi-volume journal describes an astounding body of work over two decades that resulted in more than a hundred new plum varieties.   He employed plum breeding stock from Europe, China, Japan and America to create large, sweet plums with yielding flesh that were meant for fresh consumption.  Burbank developed a technique of hand selecting seedlings he felt were promising.  During his plum career he examined over three million seedlings. 

Some orchardists have described “Satsuma” as Burbank’s most exotic plum variety.  It is a deeply colored red plum with flesh that is nearly as dark as the skin.  It is sweet but it also has a rich, wine-like flavor.  Typically Satsuma is a productive tree although its fruit tend to be small unless thinned.

My tree is now five years old and it is beginning to produce a modest crop.  I’ve dried the plums in a casual but natural way without pretreatments.  They have come through with their rich, sappy flavor intact.  They were, however, a pesky chore to stone.

On her last visit to California my mother picked out a Satsuma dried plum from a tasting in Sebastopol saying that it was “much better than any prune.”  Mothers know.

Sunberry

Sunberry
(Solanum Burbankii)

The Sunberry is one of many hundreds of plants created by Luther Burbank at his farm in Santa Rosa, California.  Burbank’s work was extraordinarily broad ranging from potatoes to plums to daisies.  In 1905 he introduced a plant he described as a hybrid cross between two members of the nightshade family, Solanum villosum and Solanum guineense.  He called the plant a “Sunberry” and he sold the plant to a seed company which promptly re-named it “Wonderberry.”  From the outset the classification of the Sunberry was the subject of minor dispute.  Burbank strenuously maintained that the Sunberry was a new creation while a more skeptical view held it to be a smaller variant of the Garden Huckleberry (Solanum nigrum guineense).  Today the argument remains unsettled although most give Burbank his due in the Latin title “Burbankii.”

The Sunberry is a smallish, lanky plant with an unkempt habit.  Its flowers have five very small white-colored petals arranged in a wheel-like pattern that is characteristic of the Solanum family which includes potatoes and eggplant.   Sunberries are small perhaps one half or one third the size of a fat blueberry.  Plants bear four-to-eight berries in informal clusters with each berry ripening on a different schedule which makes harvesting a prolonged chore.

The flavor of a Sunberry is a tricky thing to describe. Eaten raw they are neither overtly fruity nor sweet.  They have a mild flavor akin to a wild currant.  They are much superior to a raw Garden Huckleberry which needs sugar and cooking to render it edible.

The Sunberry/Wonderberry never seemed to have caught on although it isn’t a difficult plant to grow.  Perhaps the very modest yields and tedious labor at harvest were factors.  Today the Sunberry is only a novelty amongst some heirloom gardeners such as members of Seed Savers.

Sunberries have naturalized in a few of my garden beds and I’m quite content to let them co-mingle with other crops.  They seem not to intrude on other plants and its tiny berries offer a tasteful small bite as I pick work around them.   Its curious that a 100 year old mild-manner plant with mild-tasting fruit should be overlooked in the way Sunberries have.  Perhaps if the fruit were grotesquely enlarged or if the taste were a loud blast we would all know them.  But a Sunberry it what it is.

In the early 1800s there was a popular phrase in American slang that went “that guy (gal) is a huckleberry guy(gal).”  It implied two things:  that the person was small or diminutive and that he (she) was just right for the task at hand.  In an interview in 1895 Mark Twain acknowledged this meaning in naming his creation “Huckleberry Finn”.  So while Luther Burbank might disagree I think its quite correct to say that “A Sunberry is a huckleberry of a plant.”

These Sunberries were organically grown in my garden in the Valley of the Moon,  Sonoma County, California.

C Lindquist
Vegetables of Interest, 2007

Genoa Figs

Genoa Figs

If history tells us anything it tells us that anyone owning a fig tree is mighty lucky.  Who else but an owner can know the incomparable, rich and delicate flavor of a perfectly ripe fig?  Surely it isn't those without a fig tree in their yard.  They must buy figs that are green, firm and well before their time.  Sad.

But how does a fig owner know when a fig is at its perfect moment?  There are many stories and tips but the best is from Italy. The saying goes that a fig is ripe when "it has the wrinkles of a farmer's face; when its color turns to straw;  when it has the softness of a women's breast; when its stem droops like an old man; and when a widow's tear forms at its base."

These are Genoa figs grown organically in my garden in the Valley of the Moon.

C Lindquist

“Franquette Walnuts” (aka Carpathian/English)

“Franquette Walnuts”  (aka Carpathian/English)
(Juglans regia)

For practical purposes the world of walnuts is divided between two types of trees:  black walnuts and “English walnuts.”  Black walnuts are native to North America while “English walnuts” originated in Persia. If you wonder why a Persian tree is called “English” you are not alone.  Suffice to explain that in the world of plants common names are commonly misleading.

Only a handful of English walnut varieties dominate the commercial market in the United States.  California, which produces nearly all of the walnuts in the USA, has four principal varieties of walnut which make up nearly all of the state’s crop. Adding to the homogeneity of the US walnut market is that the variety of walnut being sold is rarely identified at the level of the consumer.

The Franquette walnut is a very old variety grown in France since at least the 18th century.  Along with two other old French varieties, Mayette and Parisian, they form a triad of walnuts protected by a French A.O.C. designation and sold as “noix de Grenoble.” 

Franquette and Mayette walnut trees were introduced into Northern California in the late 1800s by Felix Gitttet who started the first large tree nursery in the state.  For a time Franquette was the favored variety since it tolerated late spring frosts.  But in the very late 1800s a chance crossing of a Franquette with a Mayette walnut tree in the Napa orchard of John Hartley resulted in a smaller and more reliably productive walnut tree.  In 1925 a stable cultivar from that cross was commercially introduced as the “Hartley Walnut”.  Hartley Walnuts dominated the entire state’s orchards for the next sixty years.  If you bought any California walnuts during that time the chances are high that you were eating a Hartley.

Franquette walnuts are still to be found, particularly in the colder climates of the Northwest USA, Canada and France.  Franquette trees grow to a very large size and seem largely indifferent to measures directed at improving their modest yield.  They bear nuts on only the terminal catkins and their production from year-to-year is variable.  To their credit, however, they are nearly the last of any walnut variety to flower and thus are far less susceptible to spring frosts.

The taste difference between walnut varieties is subtle and I have very little experience upon which to draw.  But given that limitation I still claim that Franquette walnuts are the best I’ve had in my life.  If you want a second and undoubtedly unbiased opinion, the French AOC claims that Franquette walnuts have an element of “butterscotch” and “sweetness” that is unique.  So there.

One final academic note is that the genus “Juglans” is a Linnean contraction of two Latin words, “Jovis” and “glans.”  Roughly it means “Jupiter’s nipple.”  And if that imagery can’t help you remember a bit of botany lingo I give up.

These walnuts were grown in my orchard in the Valley of the Moon.  The trees were planted in the 1920-30s as part of a commercial orchard.  My modest contribution is to avoid any intervention excepting annual soil improvements using organic methods.

C. Lindquist

Redhaven Peach

“Redhaven Peach”   (Prunus persica)

Redhaven peaches are an American heirloom from the work of Dr. Stanley Johnston at the University of Michigan.  Redhaven was introduced in 1940 and soon followed by a succession of peach varieties bearing the “Haven” name in honor of the South Haven experimental station at U. Michigan. 

Redhaven came to dominate the peach market in the Midwest for nearly fifty years.  Now it has been nearly erased from the commercial market in favor of varietal mixtures. 

Redhaven is a very productive tree bearing uniform heart-shaped fruit with a prominent apex.  It has a melting luscious texture and outstanding flavor.  Use a delicate judgment in regards to eating a Redhaven.  Wait until the undercoloring is yellow and the fruit yields to touch.  Like other yellow peaches red coloring has little value in judging ripeness.

These peaches were grown organically in my garden and hand-harvested near their peak of maturity.  They should be fully ripe in a brief time.  Do not  refrigerate a ripening peach.